The warning of a tremor that could kill more than 320,000 people is forcing Japan to think of the abstract danger of disaster in more concrete terms, says Gearoid Reidy for Bloomberg Opinion.
A house is seen collapsed in Oosaki town, Kagoshima prefecture, southern Japan on Aug 9, 2024, following a powerful earthquake. Usually, however, people tend to view that threat in the abstract. It’s kind of like thinking about death - I know I’ll die someday, but I hope it won’t be today. And so far, at least, I keep getting lucky., forced citizens to consider the very real and immediate danger of an event that would devastate the country and upend life as we know it.
People were unsure how to react. What does “relatively higher” risk mean? Should we change our plans? Was this a warning, or a prediction?The risk of the Nankai Trough earthquake occurring is debatable. But the risk from such an event is hard to overstate. Nearly 10 per cent of the population might have to be evacuated. And this is before we get into any impact on nuclear plants, the supposed “unforeseeable” risk of the 2011 disaster that triggered meltdowns in Fukushima.
But because of the nature of the Nankai Trough quakes, some experts believe that the omens of a disaster can be seen. A quake in one part of the fault is often followed by another, though that pairing can occur within 32 hours as in 1854, or up to two years later as seen in 1944 and 1946, the last time the fault caused a major tremor.
. Others reacted with humour, with one wit online noting that since Google Maps allows reviews for the Nankai Trough, we should placate it with a series of five-star reviews.
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