Earthquake swarms are fueling fear of the ‘big one’ in Japan

More than 1,300 earthquakes hit the Japanese tokara islands in two weeks, which caused evacuations of dozens of residents from the distant archipelago on the southern tip of the country.

Although no major damage has been reported and no tsunami warning has been issued, the Japanese meteorological agency warned that tremors as strong as a “lower” on the seven -stage seismic intensity scale of Japan – like the one that occurred on Thursday – could continue.

The lower bottom indicates an intensity that can make people difficult to stand up without maintaining stable support.

People pass in front of the collapsed buildings after an earthquake in Wajima, prefecture of Ishikawa, Japan on January 2, 2024.

(Associated Press)

“The seismic activity remains dynamic,” the head of the JMA said on Sunday, the Oyataka at a press conference – and that fueled the fears of a megaquare.

Temblors have coincided with viral panic resulting from the reprint in 2021 of a comic strip that many now interpret as a clairvoyant prediction of a major earthquake. “The real catastrophe will come in July 2025,” read the cover of “The Future that I SAW” by the artist Manga Ryo Tatsuki. The graphic novel, which explores the dreams of Tatsuki, also presents a panel which says that “the bottom of the ocean between Japan and the Philippines will crack”.

In recent months, this prediction has become the object of intense online speculation. He even spread to neighboring countries like Hong Kong, where he was blamed for a recent drop in tourism in Japan.

Last month, Hong Kong Airlines suspended all flights to the Japanese prefectures in the south of Kagoshima and Kumamoto, citing low demand.

In South Korea, panic of earthquakes was cited as a reason for the good market of flights to Japan compared to last year, although industry experts said that there were other factors at stake: increased competition between airlines and a stronger yen that reduces the purchasing power of South Korean tourists.

On Saturday, the South Korean singer Taemin of the Shinee group, which was in Japan for a concert, referred to the prediction of Tatsuki in a livestream, assuring fans that he was safe and joking that an earthquake could make her performance “cool”.

But faced with a backlash to shed light on a natural disaster, he then apologized to Japanese and Korean.

There is a reason why the scientifically baseless prediction of a comic is currently gains so much traction: Tatsuki was (in a way) just before. The first edition of the graphic novel, published in 1999, referred to a “massive disaster” in March 2011 and contained lines like: “I dreamed of a great disaster. Pacific ocean waters south of the Japanese archipelago will increase. ”

A California road patrol officer verifies the damage to the cars that fell when the upper bridge of the Baie bridge collapsed on the lower deck after the earthquake of Loma Pieta in San Francisco on October 17, 1989.

(George Nikitin / Associated Press)

This prediction seemed to be realized with the huge Tohoku earthquake 2011Who killed more than 19,000 people and sparked the tsunami which led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. About 360 billion dollars suffered in economic damages, the earthquake remains one of the most expensive natural disasters in history. He recorded 9.0 on the Richter scale, which measures the extent of the earthquake. Shindo, the Japanese seismic intensity scale, measures intensity in a specific location.

The coincidence has catapulted Tatsuki to glory and made its manga a bestseller.

But in recent weeks, Tatsuki has tried to repress panic on his last prediction, saying in a press release published through her publisher that she was “not a prophet”.

“I believe everyone should be free to do their own interpretation,” she told Mainichi Journal in Japan in May. “However, I think it is important not to be too swept in the process and act in an appropriate manner, taking into account the opinion of the experts.”

Japanese government officials and scientists have struggled to demyralize theories, stressing that it is scientifically impossible to predict earthquakes with such precision.

“It is absolutely a coincidence. There is no causal link,” said the JMA Ebita on Saturday. “In Japan, earthquakes can occur at any time. Be ready, always. “

:::

Japan is one of the countries most subject to earthquakes in the world, given its location in the Pacific fire ring, a belt of 25,000 miles of seismics and seismic and volcanic hot spots that loop around the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean, including the American West Coast.

The country is experiencing around 1,500 earthquakes per year, almost a fifth of the world total, and the evacuation exercises of earthquakes are regularly practiced by government agencies and public schools.

On the day of last year, an earthquake of magnitude 7.5 in the Noto peninsula in central Japan resulted in more than 500 deaths and destroyed or damaged at least 37,000 houses.

Because they are seated at caliphon on two tectonic plates that overlap, the Tokara Islands have long been subject to seismic activity such as “earthquake swarms”, a burst of relatively minor earthquakes occurring in rapid succession which can last up to several months. (South California is another common site of earthquake swarms, although many are so minors that they are barely perceived.)

The archipelago extends over 12 individual islands – of which only seven are inhabited by a 660 combined residents – and the current swarm of earthquakes has been the most substantial since 1995. Two recent swarms which occurred in 2021 and 2023 have exceeded just over 300 earthquakes.

Although it is not clear why the current swarm is much larger than these cases, Takuya Nishimura, an expert in earthquake at the Research Institute on the Prevention of Kyoto disasters, says that this could be the result of a volcanic activity.

“I suspect that the Magma’s underground movement has caused a serious earthquake activity,” he said. “Several previous studies show underwater volcanoes in the swarm region, which suggests the existence of magma under the ground.”

A building collapsed in the city of Anamizu, Ishikawa prefecture on January 2, 2024. An estimated earthquake of 7.4 hit the noto region of the Ishikawa prefecture, in central Japan, around 4:10 p.m. the day before.

(Noboru Hosono / Associated Press)

Despite current viral attention around Tokara’s swarm, experts like Nishimura are more concerned with another much more credible earthquake forecast that has been looming to the country for years.

Earlier this year, a government panel estimated that there was 80% of the 8 to 9 megaquates on the Richter scale occurring along Nankai Trough in Japan over the next 30 years.

A 559 -mile flaw line located off the Japanese Pacific coast characterized by its subduction, in which a tectonic plate is forced under another, the Nankai Trough produced devastating earthquakes every 90 to 200 years. The last one occurred in 1946.

In the worst case of the government, the next earthquake of the Nankai Megathrues should kill around 300,000 people – most of them are likely to perish in tsunamis reaching up to 100 feet – and cause up to 1.8 billion of dollars.

In comparison, the death toll for the 1989 Loma Pieta earthquake and the Northridge earthquake in 1994 – the two largest seismic events in the history of recent California – was 63 and 57 years. Meanwhile, experts study the most southern tip of the fault of San Andreas, who has not had an earthquake of the earthquake of 7 or more Since 1721 and 1731.

“A future great earthquake of Nankai is surely the most anticipated earthquake in history – it is the original definition of” big “,” wrote Geologists Kyle Bradley and Judith A. Hubbard in 2024.

Earlier this month, the Japanese government announced a series of countermeasures aimed at reducing the number of deaths up to 80% and structural damage by 50%, in particular by making buildings more resistant to earthquakes and improving evacuation protocols.

“It is necessary that the nation, municipalities, companies and non -profit organizations meet and take measures to save as many lives as possible,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said.

But Nishimura, the expert of the earthquake, says that more must be done to achieve these ambitious goals.

“Although the realization of the decrease in structural damage can be difficult due to a limited budget, the reduction in deaths can be obtained thanks to gentle-type countermeasures, such as training and evacuation exercises,” he said.