Japan warns of possible megaquake after Thursday's quake

Photo: Kyodo News via Associated Press A refrigerator and other items were knocked over at a restaurant in the city of Oosaki, Kagoshima Prefecture, southern Japan, on Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, following Thursday's powerful earthquake.

Agence France-Presse in Tokyo

Published at 12:50 am

• Asia

Japanese experts have warned of a possible mega-quake after a 7.1-magnitude tremor injured eight people in southern Japan on Thursday.

“The probability of another strong earthquake is higher than normal, but it does not indicate that an earthquake will definitely occur,” the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

It is the first time such a warning has been issued since a new warning system was put in place after a devastating 2011 quake.

A government spokesman declined to comment on a report by public broadcaster NHK that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is canceling a planned trip to Central Asia on Friday because of the warning.

On Thursday, traffic lights and vehicles were damaged in the 7.1-magnitude quake, but no major damage was reported.

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The Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported that eight people were injured, several from falling objects.

At the intersection of several tectonic plates along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” Japan is one of the most seismically active countries in the world. world.

The archipelago, home to some 125 million people, experiences about 1,500 tremors a year, most of them small.

Even the strongest quakes generally cause little damage, thanks in part to the implementation of earthquake-resistant building codes and public awareness of emergency measures.

The Japanese government had previously stated that there was a 70 percent chance that a mega-earthquake would hit the country in the next 30 years.

The quake could affect a large part of Japan's Pacific coast and threaten some 300,000 people, according to experts.

“Although it is impossible to predict earthquakes, the occurrence The “severity of one earthquake generally increases the” likelihood of another one, experts write in the trade newsletter Earthquake Insights.

But even as the risk of another earthquake increases, they say, it remains “still low.”

On January 1, at least 318 people died in a powerful earthquake that hit the center of the country.

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan was a magnitude 9 earthquake off its northeastern coast on March 11, 2011, which triggered a tidal wave that left about 20,000 people dead or missing.