Much more needs to be done to prepare for a possible “megaquake” to reduce the feared death toll of up to 300,000 people, the Japanese government said.
Earthquakes are extremely hard to predict, but in January a government panel marginally increased the probability of a major jolt in the Nankai Trough off Japan in the next 30 years to 75 to 82 percent.
The government released a new estimate in March saying that such a megaquake and subsequent tsunami could cause as many as 298,000 deaths and damages of up to US$2 trillion.
Photo: AFP
In 2014 the Japanese Central Disaster Management Council issued a preparedness plan recommending a series of measures that it hoped would reduce deaths by 80 percent.
However, the government has said that so far the steps taken would only cut the toll by 20 percent, Kyodo news agency reported, and an updated preparedness plan was issued on Tuesday.
The recommended accelerated efforts including constructing embankments and evacuation buildings, as well as holding more regular drills to improve public readiness.
“It is necessary for the nation, municipalities, companies and nonprofits to come together and take measures in order to save as many lives as possible,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told a government meeting, local media reported.
The Nankai Trough is an 800km undersea gully running parallel to Japan’s Pacific coast where one tectonic plate is subducting — slowly slipping — underneath another.
Over the past 1,400 years, megaquakes in the Nankai Trough have occurred every 100 to 200 years. The last one was in 1946.
The Japan Meteorological Association in August last year issued its first advisory warning that the likelihood had risen, but it was lifted again after a week.
Some foreign tourists have been holding off traveling to Japan this summer by unfounded fears spurred on social media that a major quake is imminent.
Causing particular concern is a manga comic reissued in 2021 that predicted a major disaster on July 5, 2025. The original 1999 edition of The Future I Saw by Ryo Tatsuki claimed a great disaster would occur in 2011, which some people believe accurately predicted the March 11, 2011, Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan.
The number of visitors to Japan from Hong Kong fell 11.2 percent last month year-on-year, Japan Tourism Agency data showed.
However, those from mainland China soared 44.8 percent, while arrivals from South Korea rose 11.8 percent.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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