Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has cancelled a visit to Central Asia this week after experts warned that the risk of a “huge earthquake” off the country’s Pacific coast has increased following a 7.1-magnitude quake that struck the southwest of the country last Thursday.
Kishida, who faces slumping voter popularity and challenges to his leadership in next month’s ruling party presidential election, announced his decision at a news conference on Friday.
Abe was scheduled to hold a summit with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the Kazakh capital of Astana on Friday evening, and meet the Mongolian president in Ulan Bator on Monday, according to Kyodo News.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency on Thursday issued its first-ever warning of a major earthquake along the Pacific coast after a quake off the southernmost island of Kyushu triggered a tsunami warning. There were no reports of deaths or major damage.
But the agency’s warning that the risk of a major quake along the Nankai Trough is higher than usual does not mean a quake will definitely occur in the coming days. NHK said Kishida’s overseas trip was canceled so he could prepare for any emergency.
“If a major earthquake occurs in the future, it will cause strong shaking and large tsunamis,” the meteorological agency warned in its advisory on major earthquakes.
She added: “The probability of a new major earthquake occurring is higher than normal, but this is not an indication that a major earthquake will definitely occur within a specific period of time.”
The consultation concerns the Nankai Basin subduction zone between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean, which has been hit by major earthquakes in the past.
The 800-kilometre (500-mile) long marine basin stretches from Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, to the southern tip of Kyushu, and has been the site of devastating earthquakes of magnitude 8 or 9 every 100 to 200 years.
These massive earthquakes, which often occur in pairs, have triggered dangerous tsunamis along the southern coast of Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active countries.
In 1707, all parts of the Nankai Trough erupted at once, triggering an earthquake that remains the second-strongest recorded in the country after the March 2011 earthquake along the northeastern coast.
The earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and led to a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Although it is impossible to predict the exact timing of earthquakes—except for automated warnings that signal a possible quake within seconds—government experts believe there is a 70% to 80% chance of a major 8 or 9 magnitude quake occurring around the basin in the next 30 years.
In a worst-case scenario, the disaster is expected to kill 300,000 people, and some experts estimate financial losses at up to $13 trillion.
“The history of major Nankai earthquakes is compellingly frightening,” geologist Kyle Bradley and Judith A. Hubbard wrote in their newsletter Earthquake Insights, but they added that there was no reason for the public to panic.
Bradley and Hubbard wrote that there was a “small chance” that Thursday’s quake was just a foreshock, adding: “One challenge is that even when the risk of a second quake is high, it is always low.”