TOKYO — When a powerful earthquake struck Kumamoto Prefecture on July 28, matching the intensity of the region's devastating 2016 quakes, the death toll climbed into the dozens rather than the hundreds, a stark contrast that officials and disaster experts say reflects a decade of deliberate investment in earthquake-resistant construction, search-and-rescue training and community preparedness.

The magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck near the coastal city of Uto in southern Kumamoto Prefecture at 4:27 p.m. local time, registering a maximum intensity of 7 on Japan's seismic scale, the same top-tier reading recorded during the region's catastrophic 2016 earthquake sequence. By Aug. 3, Kumamoto's prefectural disaster response headquarters confirmed at least 38 deaths and more than 120 injuries, according to Nippon.com. While every loss of life represents a tragedy, the toll stood in sharp contrast to the 277 people killed across Kumamoto and neighboring Oita Prefecture during the twin earthquakes that struck the same region in April 2016.

A Grimly Familiar Setting, a Different Outcome

The 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes remain one of the deadliest disasters in modern Japanese history, with a magnitude 6.5 foreshock on April 14 followed just 28 hours later by a magnitude 7.3 mainshock, the first time in recorded history that two intensity-7 shocks struck the same area in such close succession. Of the 277 total deaths from that sequence, roughly 50 were direct casualties of the shaking itself, while the majority, 218 deaths, were classified as disaster-related, resulting from aggravated injuries or illness during the prolonged evacuation period that followed.

This summer's earthquake brought its own significant destruction, including a partial collapse of the second floor of an Aeon........

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