Fears of a major quake caused demand for disaster equipment and everyday goods to soar on Saturday. At a supermarket in the capital Tokyo, signs apologized to customers for missing goods “due to media reports on earthquakes.”
“Possible purchase restrictions are being prepared,” the sign said. This is already the case for water bottles. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries called on people to “refrain from excessive hoarding of goods.”
On the website of Japanese online retailer Rakuten, portable toilets, non-perishable food and bottled water were shown as the most in-demand items on Saturday morning. Some retailers on the Pacific coast reported similarly high demand, according to local media reports.
Nankai-Graben
The background to the scientists’ warnings of a potentially impending particularly strong earthquake was an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale on Thursday off the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. The so-called Nankai Trench runs off the coast in the Pacific, stretching from there for around 800 kilometers to the Shizuoka region southwest of the capital Tokyo, and where very strong earthquakes measuring eight or nine on the Richter scale have regularly occurred in the past.
After Thursday’s quake, the Japanese Meteorological and Earthquake Agency (JMA) warned of another, even stronger earthquake. It was the first time that the JMA had issued such a warning since the establishment of a new warning system following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster of 2011. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida subsequently cancelled a trip abroad.
300,000 lives in danger
The government had previously predicted that the probability of a major earthquake at the Nankai Fault with a magnitude of over 8 or 9 in the next 30 years was around 70 percent. In the worst case scenario, experts estimate that 300,000 people could die.
However, scientists have now emphasized that although there is currently a higher risk of a severe earthquake, the risk is still low. On Friday, the Tokyo region was shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale.
Japan, a country of 125 million inhabitants, is located in one of the most tectonically active areas in the world and has strict building regulations to ensure that buildings can withstand strong earthquakes. The island nation is hit by around 1,500 earthquakes every year, most of which are less severe.
