Many people choose to sleep in their cars for privacy as more than 9,000 people remain in crowded evacuation centres
2-MIN READ2-MIN ListenAssociated PressPublished: 12:45pm, 2 Aug 2026An elderly woman who developed heatstroke while taking shelter in a car was the latest fatality from a powerful earthquake that struck Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto last week, officials said on Sunday as concerns over heat-related illnesses grow in an area that is also suffering extreme temperatures.The woman in her seventies with heatstroke was found in a car, Kumamoto officials said, as they raised the death toll from the quake to 36. The magnitude 7.1 hit Kumamoto prefecture on Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu on Tuesday.
This latest death was what officials and experts had worried about amid high temperatures.
Kumamoto authorities were to start delivering leaflets to those taking shelter in their cars, urging them to stay in cool places and take sufficient liquids, and regularly take exercise to avoid blood clotting risks.
NHK public television said the woman was found dead on Thursday in a car without petrol.
