Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has cancelled a trip abroad this weekend after experts warned about an increased risk of a ‘megaquake’ following Thursday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake on the southernmost main island of Kyushu.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued on Thursday its first-ever warning of the risk of a huge earthquake along its Pacific coast, which comes after the recent quake in the country’s southwest triggered a tsunami warning.
No deaths or major damage have been reported.
The advisory the JMA issued advises the public to be alert to the possibility, but doesn’t advise evacuation currently. It emphasised that the warning does not mean that a large earthquake is imminent, but that the probability was higher than usual.
The meteorological agency’s advisory warned that “if a major earthquake were to occur in the future, strong shaking and large tsunamis would be generated”.
It added: “The likelihood of a new major earthquake is higher than normal, but this is not an indication that a major earthquake will definitely occur during a specific period of time.”
Experts issued the advisory because of where the epicentre of the recent quake was located – close to the Nankai Trough, a “subduction zone” between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean, where large earthquakes have occurred the past.
In 1707, much of the Nankai Trough ruptured at once, which resulted in Japan’s second-most powerful earthquake on record after the March 2011 earthquake along the north-east coast.
The 2011 earthquake resulted in a tsunami that killed over 18,000 people and led to a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Experts predict that there is a 70-80% chance of a magnitude eight or nine earthquake occurring somewhere along the trough within the next 30 years, a scenario that could potentially see hundreds of thousands of people killed.
The current advisory is the lower of two types of alerts at Japanese officials’ disposal and will be in place for a week.
Prime Minister Kishida was due to travel to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia today and had planned to attend a regional summit, but cancelled his attendance in light of the warning.