Farkhund Yousafzai
Tokyo, 9 August 2024 (TDI): Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday canceled a visit to Central Asia after earthquake scientists warned the country should prepare for a possible “megaquake.”
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued the advisory on Thursday after 8 people were wounded by a tremor of magnitude 7.1 in the south.
He was due Friday to visit to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia and had planned to attend a regional summit.
Kishida told reporters that as the prime minister with the highest responsibility for crisis management, he decided to stay in Japan for at least a week.
He added that the public must be feeling “very anxious” after the JMA issued its first advisory under a new system drawn up following a major magnitude 9.0 earthquake in 2011 which brought a deadly tsunami and nuclear disaster.
The possibility of a new major earthquake is higher than normal, but this is not an indication that a mega earthquake will definitely occur, the JMA said.
Traffic lights and vehicles shook and dishes fell off shelves during Thursday’s quake off the southern island of Kyushu, but no serious damage was reported.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said that 8 people were injured — including several hit by falling objects.
Sitting on top of four major tectonic plates, the Japanese archipelago of the population of 125 million people sees about 1,500 earthquakes every year, most of them minor.
Even with larger quakes the impact is generally contained thanks to advanced building techniques and well-practiced emergency procedures.
The government has previously said a megaquake has a roughly 70% probability of striking within the next thirty years.
It could affect a large swath of the Pacific coastline of Japan and threaten about 300,000 lives in the worst-case scenario, experts say.
