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ABRUZZO

Japan Mall Destruction Echoes Abruzzo's Own Post-Quake Reconstruction Challenges

A rebuilt shopping center in Kumamoto collapses again weeks after reopening, raising questions about seismic resilience that L'Aquila knows all too well

Marco Di Sante343 wordsEdition №60Wednesday, 29 July 2026 — Edition № 60

A shopping mall in Kumamoto, Japan, that had just reopened after years of reconstruction following a deadly 2016 earthquake was destroyed Tuesday by a magnitude 7.1 temblor, Fox News and the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The Aeon Mall in Kumamoto Prefecture had celebrated its grand reopening on June 13, only to be reduced to rubble by the quake, Fox News and the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

For Abruzzo, which lost more than 300 people in the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake and has seen reconstruction drag on for over a decade and a half, the images from Kumamoto carry a stark warning about the limits of rebuilding.

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Japan Mall Destruction Echoes Abruzzo's Own Post-Quake Reconstruction Challenges — La Veduta