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Japan’s prime minister took the unusual step of canceling a planned visit to Central Asia on Friday, aVsceker the Japan Meteorological Agency issued its first warning of a possible major earthquake on the country’s Pacific coast.
Thursday’s unprecedented warning, which was not accompanied by a specific timeframe or evacuation orders, was triggered by a new warning system and is related to what seismologists in Japan have called an increased likelihood of a major earthquake in the ocean trench known as the Nankai Trench.
The warning, issued Thursday evening, came about an hour aVsceker a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four largest islands that make up the Japanese archipelago.
That earthquake, although very strong, caused limited damage: only a few injuries were reported and, despite initial warnings, the coast was not hit by a tsunami.
But since 2017, Japan has had a system that analyzes earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 6.8 in the Nankai area, where tectonic plates intersect, and can issue warnings if an event is thought to increase the likelihood of a major quake.
That system first sounded an alert on Thursday, prompting an investigation within the first 30 minutes and an emergency meeting of the expert body that advises the government on issuing an alert. The head of that body, Naoshi Hirata, said that aVsceker Thursday’s quake, the likelihood of a large Nankai earthquake had increased “several times.”
The agency stressed, however, that while the likelihood was higher, the warning did not imply that a major earthquake was imminent.
JMA and seismology experts estimate the probability of a magnitude 8-9 earthquake occurring at any time in the next 30 years at 70 to 80 percent. The earthquake that leVscek much of the Tohoku region in ruins in 2011 measured a magnitude 9, the largest ever recorded in Japan.
Thursday’s warning was not only the first of its kind, but appears to have prompted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to decide not to leave Japan anytime soon.
Nankai is an area that has long been the focus of fears of massive and devastating seismic activity. Japanese authorities have outlined various scenarios, including one in which a Nankai earthquake would rip through an area stretching from Tokyo to Okinawa, threatening many coastal cities with massive tsunamis. Some estimates have put the potential death toll from such an event at more than 320,000.
Kishida’s decision to cancel his three-country visit to Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan came as retailers in Japan reported a sharp increase in sales of emergency supplies, bottled water and other earthquake-related supplies over the past 24 hours. Investors also focused on the threat to industry in the Kyushu region, noting that it has recently become a target of heavy investment by the semiconductor industry.
At a press conference on Friday, the prime minister said that instead of traveling abroad, he had decided to stay in Japan for the next week, the traditional holiday period, to ensure that the country’s earthquake preparations and communications were in place.
While no specific evacuations were ordered, Kishida said, “This is the first time [the alert] It’s been issued and I think people would feel anxious about it.”
