A devastating magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture on July 28 has left an even deeper tragedy in its wake: two employees of a local general goods retailer lost their lives in a subsequent explosion at the heavily damaged Aeon Mall, after being instructed by their employer to re-enter the structurally unstable building to secure store cash. The pair were among 38 total fatalities recorded from the seismic event, with seven of those deaths tied to the Aeon Mall complex.
One of the fallen workers has been publicly identified as 22-year-old Kurumi Otake, while the second employee’s identity remains private at the request of their family. According to reporting from Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, Otake encountered a family member outside the mall immediately after the initial earthquake struck. She told the relative that her employer, Habita – a 48-year-old retail chain that operates more than 10 locations across multiple Japanese prefectures – had ordered her to return inside to move cash from the store’s registers to a locked safe. This account was confirmed by two Habita representatives, who attended Otake’s wake on Sunday to offer a formal apology to her grieving family.
In statements to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, Habita Sales Director Goji Yuse acknowledged that the order given to the two workers was completely inappropriate, and that the company bears full responsibility for the tragedy. “Looking back now, it was not worth a life,” Yuse told reporters at the wake, per reporting from Kyodo News. “The instructions given at the time were inappropriate, and I truly regret the loss of two precious lives,” he added, noting that the company is still evaluating next steps for accountability and support for the victims’ families.
Otake’s family has shared that the young woman was known for her strong sense of responsibility, and had been supporting her mother financially since her father passed away three years ago. “If she hadn’t gone back inside the store at that time, Kurumi would still be with her family today,” a relative told local media. Otake’s mother echoed the grief of the loss in a statement to reporters, saying simply, “My daughter is not coming back.”
The timeline of the tragedy reveals a devastating gap between the earthquake and the fatal explosion: while most mall patrons and staff evacuated immediately after the seismic shaking, the explosion that took the workers’ lives struck roughly an hour later, when the pair were carrying out their assigned task inside the damaged building.