Two female employees who died in the explosion at Aeon Mall Kumamoto were told by their company to go back inside the building after first evacuating following an earthquake, according to executives speaking on August 2. The workers had reportedly left the site for safety before being instructed to return.
The reason they were sent back was to place sales proceeds in a safe, the executives said. The disclosure has focused attention on what happened in the moments between the earthquake, the evacuation, and the blast at the shopping mall in Kumamoto.
The incident has raised concerns about workplace decisions during emergencies, especially when staff are asked to re-enter a building after a seismic event. In a situation where safety conditions may still be unclear, the order to return has become a central issue in coverage of the deaths.
Authorities and the company are now likely to face further scrutiny over the sequence of events and whether proper precautions were followed. With Aeon Mall Kumamoto at the center of the case, the explosion is also prompting broader questions about disaster response and employee protection in Japan.
