The chain of powerful quakes that have rocked Kumamoto Prefecture and neighboring areas since Thursday has defied conventional wisdom built on past experience in this quake-prone country. The initial magnitude 6.5 earthquake that registered the maximum 7 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale Thursday night was followed by a much more powerful magnitude 7.3 temblor — equivalent to the 1995 quake that devastated Kobe in 1995 — in the wee hours of Saturday morning, which expanded the destruction to much broader areas. The number of quakes that hit the areas topped 500 as of Monday morning, including six that registered in the 6 range on the Japanese scale — each strong enough to wreak extensive damage.

The emergency rescue and support of survivors remains a top priority after the quakes claimed at least 42 lives and injured more than 1,000. More than 100,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes as of Monday since the quakes made them uninhabitable or they feared further destruction of their already-damaged properties by the aftershocks. Food supplies to evacuees and local shops remain scarce due to transportation disruptions. Hundreds of thousands of households have been left without water, gas and electricity for days.

The quakes demonstrate once again that natural disasters can hit at any time and anywhere in ways and scope that are beyond our imagination — just as the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami showed us five years ago. The Kumamoto quakes, which originated at a shallow depth of around 10 km, took place on active faults. The nation is estimated to have roughly 2,000 active faults. We can't stop natural disasters from hitting us but we can still find ways to control the damage. We need to assess if the lessons of past disasters have helped contain damage in the Kumamoto quakes and explore what can be learned from the latest catastrophe.