TOKYO (AP) — An elderly woman who developed heat stroke while taking shelter in a car is the latest fatality from a powerful earthquake that struck Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto last week, officials said Sunday as concerns over heat-related illnesses grow in an area that is also suffering extreme temperatures.
The woman in her 70s with apparent heat stroke 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.
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Hirokazu Sato, his wife and their three children live temporarily inside their car, center left, parked at the parking lot of the Hikawa Town Hall in Hikawa, southern Japan, Thursday, July 30, 2026, two days after an earthquake hit the area. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Residents receive food supply following an earthquake in Hikawa, Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Workers inspect debris of the Kinparo inn, founded in 1910, for conservation of a possible rebuilding in Yatsushiro, southern Japan, Friday, July 31, 2026, three days after an earthquake hit the area. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Residents receive water supplies at Hikawa town hall as an earthquake disrupted water service in Hikawa, Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, Friday, July 31, 2026. (Atsuhiro Maeda/Kyodo News via AP)
A firefighter searches the damaged AEON Mall following an explosion triggered by an earthquake in Kashima, Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, Friday, July 31, 2026. (Kai Naito/Kyodo News via AP)
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 Thursday in a car without gas.
”It’s heartbreaking,” said Kumaoto Gov. Takashi Kimura, referring to the death of the woman, as he called on evacuees taking shelter in their cars to keep refueling their vehicles to run air-conditioning, or consider moving to air-conditioned evacuation centers to avoid similar risks.
The prefecture’s main challenge is the lack of fresh water still affecting nearly 47,000 homes, and fuel shortages as Japan suffers sweltering heat, stoking fears of heat-related illness.
Japan Meteorological Agency said temperatures reached an “extreme heat” level of 36.6 degrees Celsius (97.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Kumamoto city Saturday and that they could go higher Sunday.
More than 9,000 people remain at crowded shelters, such as converted community centers, school gyms and classrooms, many of them lacking air-conditioning. Many others slept in cars parked at town hall parking lots and parks, or outside of their homes, for privacy.
Due to fuel supply shortages in hard-hit areas, there have been long lines of cars outside of gas stations that have resumed operations as fuel delivery gradually restarted.
Experts have long criticized Japan’s crowded conditions at emergency shelters, arguing that a lack of sanitation and privacy creates additional stress and increases the risk of health problems for disaster-hit people.
Water, food and other necessities, including portable toilets, as well as air conditioners and partitions, were being delivered to improve conditions at the evacuation centers, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told a government task force meeting Saturday.
“The government is determined to do everything we can,” Takaichi said.
On Saturday, authorities ended a massive dayslong search-and-rescue operation at the Aeon Mall, in the town of Kashima, after extracting five people and the bodies of seven others. The site was one of the hardest-hit sites, after an explosion that followed the quake caused the walls and a floor to collapse.
The explosion, which the company said it believes was due to a gas leak, occurred after about 3,000 shoppers had been evacuated to a parking lot following the quake, but some employees remained inside. The mall’s second floor collapsed.
The overall number of missing in the hit prefecture remains unknown, and search operations pressed on, with thousands of Self Defense troops, police, rescue workers and sniffing dogs deployed.
Takaichi urged rescue personnel not to leave anyone behind.
At another hard-hit site in Kumamoto Prefecture, a chimney collapsed at the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro city, trapping 11 employees. Nine have since been confirmed dead and two were rescued, officials said.
The earthquake has left 105 people injured in Kumamoto, authorities said, and two in addition to the reported deaths are being investigated to determine if they are quake-related.
The prefecture said reports of power loss have fallen to fewer than 900 households, but local power company serving Kyushu said it had no immediate reports of outages.
Over 180 homes were destroyed, officials said, and more than 3,800 buildings were damaged, with 20 of them severely affected, according to Kumamoto prefectural assessments.
Hirokazu Sato, his wife and their three children live temporarily inside their car, center left, parked at the parking lot of the Hikawa Town Hall in Hikawa, southern Japan, Thursday, July 30, 2026, two days after an earthquake hit the area. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Residents receive food supply following an earthquake in Hikawa, Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Workers inspect debris of the Kinparo inn, founded in 1910, for conservation of a possible rebuilding in Yatsushiro, southern Japan, Friday, July 31, 2026, three days after an earthquake hit the area. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Residents receive water supplies at Hikawa town hall as an earthquake disrupted water service in Hikawa, Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, Friday, July 31, 2026. (Atsuhiro Maeda/Kyodo News via AP)
A firefighter searches the damaged AEON Mall following an explosion triggered by an earthquake in Kashima, Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, Friday, July 31, 2026. (Kai Naito/Kyodo News via AP)
LACANAU, France (AP) — Europe’s wildfire crisis split into three stark fronts Sunday: gale-force winds drove flames deeper into the Athens region and forced fresh evacuations, France guarded a still-burning scar four times the size of Paris, and Spain’s major fires stopped advancing.
The most immediate danger was in Greece. Flames spread through western Attica, the region around Athens, threatening communities and an industrial district outside Megara as violent gusts prevented firefighting aircraft from collecting water from the sea. The danger carried grim resonance in a region where the 2018 Mati wildfire killed 104 people, Europe’s deadliest blaze this century.
Farther west, containment brought no end to the emergency. France’s largest wildfire remained held within its perimeter after forcing 224,000 people to flee in what may have been the country’s largest civilian evacuation outside wartime.
Hot spots still burned within a 420-square-kilometer (162-square-mile) scar, thousands remained unable to return home, and nearly 3,000 firefighters were deployed against the Gironde megafire and a second, still-uncontained blaze in Provence.
Together, fires in France and Spain have driven roughly a third of a million people from homes and vacation sites, emptied communities at the height of the European summer and stretched emergency services across simultaneous disasters.
The mass evacuations in France and Spain are the latest measure of a wildfire threat growing across Europe.
The continent entered 2026 after its worst fire year on record, with more than 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) burned in 2025. Over the past four decades, wildfires have been linked to nearly 800 deaths across much of Europe, according to the European Environment Agency.
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent. It has warmed more than twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Human-caused climate change made the extreme fire-weather conditions behind this year’s French blazes at least twice as likely, scientists at World Weather Attribution found in a rapid analysis conducted while the fires were still burning.
Nearly 500 firefighters and 23 aircraft were deployed, but gale-force winds drove flames through dry forest and crippled the response, preventing some aircraft from reaching the sea to collect water.
Authorities ordered the evacuation of Kandili, Agia Skepi and Toutouli as smoke rose over the mountains. Crews were particularly concerned about Porto Germeno, a seaside community on the Gulf of Corinth. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was briefed on the operation.
The fire began Friday near Agios Vasileios before sweeping toward Porto Germeno and into the forested mountains west of Athens. Firefighters evacuated 254 people by sea Friday and another 12 Saturday — often the last escape route when fire and smoke cut the few roads from coastal communities.
Wildfire meteorologist Theodore Giannaros estimated the blaze had affected 40 to 50 square kilometers (15 to 19 square miles), though authorities had issued no official figure.
Elsewhere in Greece, flames threatened homes on Kefalonia, forcing evacuations from inland communities as aircraft made water drops over the Ionian island. Firefighters battled another blaze near Nea Tenedos in Halkidiki.
Earlier this week, two firefighters died fighting a fire on Crete, while a third was killed in the Peloponnese.
“A pristine forest, a paradise, was surrendered to the hands of the fire,” local farmer Minas Tzortzanis said Saturday. “There are no words to explain what has happened. Destruction. Total destruction.”
In southwestern France, the Gironde megafire remained held within its perimeter Sunday but continued to burn after scorching 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of forest in 10 days.
“The fire is now fixed, which does not mean that the fire is extinguished,” the Gironde prefecture said, using the French firefighting term for a blaze whose advance has been stopped.
The region remained under France’s highest red forest-fire alert. Dry conditions, soaring temperatures around Bordeaux and afternoon winds threatened to rekindle the flames.
In Le Porge, local officials said about 150 homes were destroyed. Mechanic Matthieu Plessis returned Saturday to the ruins of a house that had been in his family for seven generations.
“There are places I don’t even recognize anymore,” he said. “You don’t even know what was here anymore, or who lived where.”
Firefighters from Ukraine, Lithuania and French Polynesia were expected Sunday and Monday to reinforce the operation.
In southeastern France, nearly 1,500 firefighters battled a separate blaze in the Var department that tore through about 18 square kilometers (7 square miles) in little more than a day.
The Gros Bessillon fire was stabilized Sunday after its perimeter held overnight, but it remained uncontained. Some 2,500 people were evacuated as flames threatened nearby communities.
It was the fourth major fire to strike central Var since July 19. A smaller blaze near Brignoles earlier in the week forced actor George Clooney and his family, along with about 700 other residents, to evacuate before it was brought under control.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said France’s fires were generally under control but warned that conditions remained volatile. He appointed a national coordinator to oversee reconstruction in fire-ravaged areas.
More than 1,170 square kilometers (452 square miles) have burned across France this year.
Spain’s major fires — part of a season that has killed at least 13 people, produced the country’s largest recorded wildfire and prompted a national emergency — were no longer advancing Sunday.
In Zamora province near the Portuguese border, more than 20 ground and aerial units guarded the perimeter of the Fermoselle fire against flare-ups in the rugged Arribes del Duero landscape. Most evacuees had returned home, according to local media.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called for a national pact to confront wildfires, warning that climate change is making them increasingly destructive.
Adamson reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Michael Varaklas in Megara, Greece, and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report
A firefighting helicopter drops water over a smoke-filled forest during a wildfire near Porto Germeno, northwest of Athens, Greece, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)
A firefighting helicopter drops water over a smoke-filled forest during a wildfire near Porto Germeno, northwest of Athens, Greece, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)
An Airbus helicopter lets a Bambi Bucket full of water go over a firezone, near Blagon, southwestern France, Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
A firefighting helicopter releases water over a wildfire near Correns, southeastern France, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (Clement Mahoudeau/Pool Photo via AP)
The light flows through a charred forest near Ares, during wildfires in southwestern France, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
An aerial view of a homes burned by wildfires in Le Porge, southwestern France, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Nicolas Garriga)
A firefighter walks through a charred forest near Blagon, during wildfires, southwestern France, Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
