Kumamoto Castle was damaged on Tuesday when an earthquake rocked southwestern Japan. The castle is one of the country’s oldest and most renowned fortresses in the country. Videos show one of the structure’s stone walls partially collapsed as rocks tumbled to the ground as a magnitude-7.1 earthquake rocked the southwest of Japan. This is the second time in a decade the castle has taken a beating from an earthquake. In 2016, when two powerful earthquakes and a series of aftershocks struck Japan, part of a stone wall around the Kumamoto Castle collapsed into the moat. The landmark has stood for more than 400 years and is best known for the Siege of Kumamoto Castle during the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, when 3,500 soldiers held off 13,000 members of the Satsuma Army from within the castle. To this day, visitors from around the world go to Kumamoto to see the historic site. The castle’s management announced that it would close for the day. “We ask everyone to prioritize your own safety above all else in your actions,” it said on social media.
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