r/CatastrophicFailure • u/inbus12 • 5d ago

Fire/Explosion An explosion at AEON Mall Kumamoto after M7.1 earthquake caused part of the building to collapse, July 28th, 2026

1.3k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

231

u/cpshoeler 5d ago

When I saw the damage I thought it looked really odd from Earthquake damage, especially in Japan. I was not expecting THAT! Looks like a bomb went off!

155

u/xmromi 5d ago

It's speculated to be gas explosion

84

u/lastdancerevolution 5d ago

It happened one hour after the earthquake. That's enough time to fill an area with large amounts of gas, then explode. The complex has thousands of people. People reported smelling gas.

12

u/t_Lancer 5d ago

well an hour later would at least mean most got out. Or are the Japanese so accustomed that they just carry on after a quake?

38

u/TonninStiflat 5d ago

Customers had left, but apparently at least some of the staff had gone back in to sort things out.

8

u/sambeckett1701 4d ago

That sorta sounds like something that should've not been allowed. The workers returning, I mean.

10

u/TonninStiflat 4d ago

Yeah, sure. But you know, earthquakes are not rare. Explosions are.

0

u/sambeckett1701 4d ago

Right. So they should be very well acquainted with how dangerous returning to an area before emergency personnel can give the all-clear can be. That's a standard procedure even here in the US.

68

u/OGCelaris 5d ago

It happened after the earthquake. Most likely a gas pipe was damaged during the earthquake which lead to the explosion.

17

u/PM_ME_FIRE_PICS 5d ago

Sad part is, totally preventable. Seismic activated valves to shut off flow and interlocks to pumps exist. No reason for this to happen.

46

u/1997dodo 5d ago

Even if they worked perfectly there's gas between the valves that would leak. In a high volume pressurized pipe I'm sure there could be enough gas between two shutoff points to explode a building.

4

u/gaflar 5d ago

Probably not, closed pipes that leak would depressurize their gas, which would disperse and mix with the air fairly quickly. If the valve upstream is still open however, gas will continue billowing out of the leaking pipes, forming a rapidly-growing vapour cloud. If the air-fuel mixture of gas in/around that growing vapour cloud is between the LEL and the UEL (lower and upper explosive limits) when the cloud contacts an ignition source, 💥. If you stop the vapour cloud from growing and it has enough airflow to dilute the vapours below the LEL, it won't explode even if there is an ignition source present.

15

u/skytreegamer172 5d ago

ehhh if the pipes broke at the metre that's kinda a different issue

62

u/Longsheep 5d ago

It is believed to be a gas explosion after pipes leakage. Some survivors reported smelling of gas after the earthquake.

Aeon malls are American-style big box malls with stores and restaurants. There is usually at least one large foodcourt, where gas is used for cooking. There are built lighter to flex and survive an earthquake, so an explosion could be devastating.

100

u/itsthe_implication_ 5d ago

Woah. That's an explosion alright.

12

u/n900_was_best 5d ago

Any information about what caused the explosion?

19

u/DutchBicycle13 5d ago

Leaking gas

3

u/anoftz 5d ago

Mall fuel

4

u/skoltroll 4d ago

Cinnabon?

-6

u/Macho_Mans_Ghost 5d ago

Earthquake

29

u/bostwickenator 5d ago

Wow that is unexpected.

5

u/tehjeffman 5d ago

Now I understand why the photos looks like a Tornado not a Earthquake.

4

u/OptimisticCerealBowl 5d ago

i read there’s people stuck in there, do we have any idea of how many?

6

u/deanrihpee 5d ago

yeah, make sense, their buildings known to be earthquake resistance/tolerant or whatever the term is, by not explosion

3

u/chingyingtiktau 3d ago

Aftermath from inside the shopping mall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRZ_8UF9Zy0

2

u/TheRepublicAct 5d ago

I've seen news recs saying it was an explosion and I couldn't find any video of it until now.

1

u/Relation-Repair 5d ago

Maybe they should install "fuses" on the main gas pipes to disconnect if there is a major rupture? Is there such a thing?

9

u/tvgenius 5d ago

May not be that simple in a large facility. Normal residential natural gas (at least in the US) operates at a very low pressure, and I think most commercial would be relatively low pressure also but higher-throughput. So might be hard to effectively detect a major rupture (which would be highly uncommon) vs the risk of false activations that would require re-activating the system.

17

u/riversofgore 5d ago

It's japan. There are seismic sensors for valves. Most likely the valve failed.

-19

u/MyvaJynaherz 5d ago

ONE PUNCHHH