Prime Minister Fumito Kishida cancelled a four-day trip to Central Asia after government scientists warned of a potential “megaquake”.
The weather agency said a massive earthquake was more likely in the aftermath of Thursday’s magnitude 7.1 jolt in the south, which injured 14 people.
Some bullet trains between Tokyo and western Osaka are running slower as a precaution, so delays are expected for approximately a week, according to the rail operator.
Authorities also directed nuclear reactors around the country to double-check their crisis preparedness.
The Japanese phrase for “hoarding” was trending on social media site X, as individuals expressed concern over panic buying and urged one another to remain rational.
Premier Kishida was scheduled to visit Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia on Friday for a regional conference.
“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.
He said the public must be feeling “very anxious” after the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued its first advisory under a new system drawn up following a major 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,” the JMA said.
‘Risk elevated, but low’
Traffic lights and cars trembled, and crockery fell off shelves during Thursday’s earthquake off the southern island of Kyushu, but no severe damage was recorded.
The Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported that 14 individuals were injured, including two critical injuries.
Sitting on top of four major tectonic plates, the Japanese archipelago of 125 million people experiences over 1,500 earthquakes each year, the majority of which are mild.
Even with stronger tremors, the impact is often limited due to improved construction techniques and well-practiced emergency protocols.
According to the authorities, a megaquake is likely to occur within the next 30 years (about 70% probability).
Experts believe it might harm a broad area of Japan’s Pacific coastline and endanger an estimated 300,000 lives in the worst-case scenario.
According to Earthquake Insights experts, earthquake prediction is impossible, and even when the likelihood of a second earthquake increases, it is “still always low”.
On January 1, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake and intense aftershocks struck the Noto Peninsula on the Sea of Japan coast, killing at least 318 people, destroying buildings, and knocking down highways.
In 2011, a massive 9.0-magnitude underwater earthquake off northeastern Japan generated a tsunami that killed or left around 18,500 people missing.
It melted three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear facility, resulting in Japan’s biggest postwar calamity and the most devastating nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
A potential megaquake could come from the enormous Nankai Trough off eastern Japan, which has already produced big jolts, sometimes in pairs, with magnitudes of eight or nine.
This included one in 1707, which was the greatest recorded until 2011, when Mount Fuji last erupted in 1854, followed by two in 1944 and 1946.
People should “make sure they have enough water in their house to last for a week or so after a quake. And maybe batteries for their flashlight” as part of their usual precautions, Robert Geller, professor emeritus of seismology at the University of Tokyo, told AFP.
“But other than that, there’s no need to do anything special.”