New Delhi, Aug. 2 -- TOKYO - The quiet after the blast was worse than the blast itself.

Five days after an explosion ripped through the Aeon Mall in Kashima, triggered by what investigators believe was a gas leak that ignited following a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Kumamoto Prefecture on July 30, Japanese search teams concluded their operation on Saturday, NBC News reported. They had extracted five people from the debris. They had also retrieved seven bodies.

That the rescue ended was not a surprise. That it ended with five survivors was.

The earthquake struck Kyushu, Japan's southernmost main island, in the predawn hours of Tuesday morning, and proved the most powerful to hit the region in a decade. It killed 34 people across the pref...