Experts issue ‘megaquake’ warning in Japan
Warning of the risk of a huge earthquake along the Pacific coast has been issued by Japan Meteorological Department.
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has cancelled a visit to central Asia this weekend after the warning of a “megaquake” occurring off the country’s Pacific coast has amplified following Thursday’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake in the south-west.
Japan Prime Minister Kishida was about to hold a summit with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the Kazakhstan capital Astana on Friday evening and had to meet the Mongolian president in Ulaanbaatar on Monday, but he had to cancel his trip following the warning.
The Japan Meteorological Agency on Thursday sounded its first-ever warning of the risk of a giant earthquake along the Pacific coast after a quake on the southernmost island of Kyushu prompted a tsunami warning.
The Meteorological Agency said that the warning does not mean that an earthquake will definitely strike but its chances are higher than normal measurement.
megaquake advisory warned that “if a major earthquake were to occur in the future, strong shaking and huge tsunamis would be created”.
The advisory fears the Nankai Trough “subduction zone” among two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean, where gigantic earthquakes have hit in the previous decades.
The 800-kilometre (500-mile) underwater trough runs from Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, to the southern tip of Kyushu and has been the location of damaging earthquakes of magnitude 8 or 9 every 100 to 200 years.
In 2011 more than fifteen thousand people fell prey to tsunami after a strong earthquake.
government authorities believe there is a 70% to 80% chance of an megaquake measuring 8 or 9 magnitude happening around the trough in the next Three decades. In the worst-case situation, the disaster would kill 300,000 people. but added that there was no need for the community to fear.