Japanese experts have warned of a possible mega-earthquake 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 this does not indicate that an earthquake will occur with certainty,” the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.
It is the first time such a warning has been issued since a new alert system was put in place after the devastating earthquake in 2011.
A government spokesman declined to comment on a report by public broadcaster NHK that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was having to cancel a planned trip to Central Asia on Friday because of the warning.
Traffic lights and vehicles were damaged in the 7.1-magnitude quake on Thursday, but no major damage was reported.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported that eight people were injured, several due to falling objects.
At the crossroads of several tectonic plates along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, Japan is one of the countries with the most seismic activity in the world.
The archipelago, home to some 125 million people, experiences around 1,500 tremors a year, most of them of low magnitude.
Even the strongest earthquakes usually cause little damage, thanks in part to the application of earthquake-resistant building standards 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 within the next 30 years.
The quake could affect a significant portion of Japan’s Pacific coast and threaten some 300,000 people, experts say.
“Although earthquake prediction is impossible, the occurrence of one earthquake generally increases the probability” that another will occur, experts describe in the specialist newsletter Earthquake Insights.
But according to them, even as the risk of another earthquake increases, it remains “still low.”
The 1er In January, 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 on March 11, 2011, off its northeastern coast, which triggered a tidal wave that left around 20,000 people dead or missing.