Japan’s PM scraps abroad journey over fears of MEGAQUAKE

Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida has cancelled an overseas trip to Central Asia over fears a megaquake threating 300,000 lives could hit the country. 

Tsumani waves struck the main southern island of Japan yesterday after a powerful earthquake was registered off the coast injuring eight people. 

This triggered the Japan Meteorological Agency to issue a warning of a possible megaquake on Thursday. 

Mr Kishida had been due to travel to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia today and planned to attend a regional summit but cancelled the trip at the last minute. 

‘As the prime minister with the highest responsibility for crisis management, I decided I should stay in Japan for at least a week,’ he told reporters.

Kishida added that the public must be feeling ‘very anxious’ following the alert issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency – which is the first of its kind under a new system drawn up following a 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,’ a spokesperson for the Japan Meteorological Agency added. 

The 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.

‘While earthquake prediction is impossible, the occurrence of one earthquake usually does raise the likelihood of another,’ experts from Earthquake Insights said.

But they added that even when the risk of a second earthquake is elevated, it is ‘still always low’.

Traffic lights and cars shook and dishes fell off shelves during Thursday’s earthquake off the southern island of Kyushu, but no serious damage was reported.

Tidal waves of up to one metre arrived and were ‘expected to strike repeatedly’ as Japan braced for impact. 

Tsunami advisories were sent out over several regions in the southwestern islands of Kyushu and Shikoku, as Japan prepared its rapid response forces.

‘First time in my life I’ve felt shaking like this,’ one resident of Kyushu said yesterday as homes and power lines began to shake.

‘Normally I barely feel it when I’m outside or in a car, but it shook to the point that even when I’m standing, there was a fluttering feeling.’

The quake most strongly shook Nichinan city and nearby areas in Miyazaki prefecture on Kyushu island. 

Footage from Japan showed light fixtures and wall decorations swinging as the earthquakes hit today.

Broadcaster NHK showed footage of traffic lights shaking violently in Miyazaki on Kyushu’s southeast coast. 

‘The surface of the sea is wavering. I felt an intense jolt when the quake happened which lasted for between 30 seconds and a minute,’ one local official told NHK. 

The broadcaster also reported that three people were hurt in Miyazaki but gave no indication of the extent of their injuries. 

Japan’s meteorological society predicted waves of up to 1 meter (3.3 feet) along the southern coast of Kyushu and Shikoku. 

The United States Geological Survey initially reported that the first quake was followed by another 7.1 magnitude tremor.

However this was later deemed an error, the agency confirming there had only been one tremor. 

‘This error has been fixed. There was one event,’ the USGS said.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) also reported a single quake.

NHK reported that there were no abnormalities detected at Japan’s Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima, harking back to the devastating Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 as power supplies were knocked offline by an earthquake.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority said all 12 nuclear reactors, including three which are currently operating, on Kyushu and Shikoku remained safe. 

The Japanese government has set up a special task force in response to the quakes, the USGS reported. 

Seismologists were also holding an emergency meeting to analyse whether the quake had affected the nearby Nankai Trough, the source of past devastating earthquakes. 

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said officials were assessing possible injuries or serious damage, though none were immediately reported. 

He urged residents of the affected region to stay away from the coastline. 

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wrote on Twitter/X that he had issued instructions in response, and that authorities were collecting information on damage.

‘Please continue to be on the lookout for strong shaking and take action to protect your lives,’ he wrote. 

Sitting on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’, Japan is one of the world’s most tectonically active countries.

The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, experiences around 1,500 jolts every year and accounts for around 18 percent of the world’s earthquakes.

The vast majority are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to their location and the depth below the Earth’s surface at which they strike.

Still, even large quakes usually cause little damage thanks to special construction techniques and strict building regulations in the world’s number four economy.

On New Year’s Day, at least 260 people died after a massive earthquake hit the peninsula, including 30 ‘quake-linked’ deaths as well as those killed directly in the disaster.

The January 1 quake and its aftershocks toppled buildings, caused fires and knocked out infrastructure at a time when families were celebrating the new year.