TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida canceled a trip to Central Asia on Friday after earthquake scientists warned the country should prepare for a possible “megaquake”.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued the advisory on Thursday after eight people were injured by a 7.1-magnitude tremor in the country’s south.
Kishida was due to travel to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia on Friday and planned to attend a regional summit.
“The probability of a new large earthquake is higher than usual, but this does not mean that a large earthquake will definitely occur,” the JMA said.
An earthquake off the southern island of Kyushu on Thursday shook traffic lights and shook cars and knocked dishes off shelves, but no serious damage was reported.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said eight people were injured – including several hit by falling objects.
The Japanese archipelago of 125 million people, located on four major tectonic plates, experiences about 1,500 earthquakes each year, mostly minor.
Even in larger tremors, the impact is generally contained due to advanced construction techniques and well-rehearsed emergency procedures.
It could affect much of Japan’s Pacific coast, putting an estimated 300,000 lives at risk in a worst-case scenario, experts said.
“Although earthquake prediction is impossible, the occurrence of one earthquake usually increases the likelihood of another,” Earthquake Insights experts said.
However, they added that while the risk of a second earthquake is elevated, it is “still always low”.
On January 1, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake hit the Noto Peninsula on the Sea of Japan coast, with strong aftershocks that killed at least 318 people, toppled buildings and toppled roads.
In 2011, a mammoth 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake off northeastern Japan triggered a tsunami that left around 18,500 dead or missing.
Three reactors collapsed at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing Japan’s worst post-war disaster and the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
A future megaquake could emanate from the vast Nankai Trough off eastern Japan, which has experienced large quakes in the past, often in pairs, of magnitude eight and even magnitude nine.
This included one in 1707 – until 2011 the largest on record – when Mount Fuji last erupted, in 1854, and then a pair in 1944 and 1946.
