“Megaquake” Warning in Japan; PM Kishida Cancels Foreign Trip

Earthquake scientists warned that Japan should prepare for a possible “megaquake”. Following this warning, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday cancelled a trip to Central Asia.

Kishida was due Friday to travel to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued the advisory on Thursday after a tremor of 7.1 magnitude injured eight people in Japan.

“As the prime minister with the highest responsibility for crisis management, I decided I should stay in Japan for at least a week,” the Japan PM said to reporters.

Kishida 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 triggered a deadly tsunami and nuclear disaster.

“The likelihood of a new major earthquake is higher than normal, but this is not an indication that a major earthquake will definitely occur,” the JMA said.

Japan experiences around 1,500 quakes every year, most of them minor.

The Japan government has previously said a megaquake has a roughly 70 percent probability of striking within the next 30 years.

It could affect a large swath of the Pacific coastline of Japan and threaten an estimated 300,000 lives in the worst-case scenario, experts say.

A future megaquake could start from the vast Nankai Trough off eastern Japan that in the past has seen major jolts in 1707, which was the largest recorded till Mount Fuji erupted in  — 2011. Megaquakes have occurred in 1854, 1944 and 1946.