Kumamoto Castle damaged again as powerful quake strikes Japan

A powerful earthquake that struck Japan's Kumamoto Prefecture on Tuesday dealt another severe blow to Kumamoto Castle, a 400-year-old landmark still recovering from a previous disaster.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun, the Kumamoto Castle General Office confirmed that the magnitude-7.1 quake damaged at least 28 sites within the castle grounds.

Officials said they had identified the 28 damaged locations by 8:30 p.m., roughly four hours after the quake struck, and warned that the total could rise as inspections continue.

Local media reported that sections of the castle walls had collapsed, and that cracks and other structural damage were found in four buildings — including the main keep, known as the tenshu, and the Honmaru Goten, the palace where the castle lord once resided.

Kumamoto Castle ranks among Japan's three greatest castles, alongside Nagoya Castle and either Osaka Castle or Himeji Castle. Construction began in 1601 and was completed in 1607 under Kato Kiyomasa (1562–1611), a Japanese warlord who participated in the invasion of the Korean Peninsula during the Imjin War and captured two sons of King Seonjo — Prince Imhaegun and Prince Sunhwagun — as prisoners. Artisans from the Korean Peninsula are also said to have contributed their skills to the castle's construction.

The fortress earned its reputation as impregnable during the Seinan War, a civil conflict in 1877, when a force of about 13,000 troops led by Saigo Takamori (1828–1877) — a samurai of the Satsuma domain, in what is now southern Kyushu — besieged the castle for 52 days without ever taking it.

The castle had already been undergoing repairs after stone walls and parts of the main keep's roof collapsed in the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes when Tuesday's quake struck and caused fresh damage.

Local media added that the castle was open to visitors at the time of the quake and had drawn a large crowd, but that an evacuation was carried out and no casualties were reported.

The Uto Yagura turret, a nationally designated important cultural property damaged in the April 2016 earthquake, escaped further harm because it had already been dismantled for restoration work, local media said.