Japan on Thursday ended its warning of a higher-than-normal risk of a major earthquake, a week after strong shaking at the edge of the Nankai Trough seafloor prompted the government to issue its first-ever strong earthquake warning. Japan’s vice minister for disaster management, Yoshifumi Matsumura, said citizens can now resume normal life as there has been no abnormality in seismic activity in the Nankai Trough off Japan’s Pacific coast over the past week. A panel of experts from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued an alert on August 8 saying there was a “relatively high probability” of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in the Nankai Trough following a magnitude 7.1 quake in the country’s southwest. While the alert was not a definitive prediction, the government asked residents in large swaths of western and central Japan to reconsider evacuation procedures in the event of a severe earthquake and tsunami disaster.
Japan predicts a 70%-80% chance of a major Nankai Trough earthquake within the next 30 years. The government’s worst-case scenario is that a Nankai Trough earthquake and subsequent tsunami disaster could kill 323,000 people, destroy 2.38 million buildings and cause economic losses of 220 trillion yen ($1.50 trillion).
