A magazine piece describing extreme anti-Japan posts on Chinese social media over the Kumamoto earthquake — including 'this quake is divine punishment' — set off a wave of angry replies in Japan. Rather than simple outrage, many netizens fired back by pointing at China's own floods and disasters. How widely those posts actually circulated is unclear.
Two opposite stories about foreigners in the Kumamoto earthquake zone circulated on the same day. One was a single social media post claiming three suspicious foreigners had been seen in Yatsushiro, which could not be matched to any reported theft, suspect or police statement. The other was a report that five Vietnamese workers had pulled an elderly woman from a collapsed house with their bare hands. Threads carried calls for patrols and checkpoints, warnings against repeating the rumours of 1923, and readers who praised the rescue while saying it changed nothing about their view of foreign residents.
A powerful earthquake registering the maximum seismic intensity of 7 struck Kumamoto on July 28. Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te and Taiwan's foreign ministry pledged support the same day in Japanese, prompting a flood of thanks from Japanese commenters, who also sized up the quake damage through comparisons with disasters abroad.