A severe warning has been issued by Chinese scientists regarding the possibility of a megaquake in Japan that may cause a 33-foot tsunami, putting millions of lives at jeopardy and severely damaging the world economy. The risk associated with a fault line off the east coast of Japan, namely in the Nankai Trough, where the Pacific Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate converge, was brought to the attention of the Seismological Society of China.
A partial breach within the Nankai Trough might produce an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.5, according to Gao Mengtan, a renowned scientist from the Institute of Geophysics at the China Earthquake Administration. A full rupture, on the other hand, might cause this to grow to a 9.1 magnitude earthquake with disastrous results. A complete rupture might cause a tsunami that is more than 10 meters (33 feet) high, which could demolish 2.38 million buildings, kill about 320,000 people, and uproot 9.5 million more people.
The ripple effects of such an occurrence will not be restricted to Japan alone. Gao stressed that urban areas located in the vicinity of Nankai Trough, especially in Chubu and Kansai regions, are key economic centers with a share in production amounting to 70% for whole Japan. Since Kyushu hosts a large part of Japan’s semiconductor manufacturing, the damages would be crippling—potentially leading to global disruptions in the supply chain. According to Gao, the loss of economic damage from megaearthquakes could reach up to 220 trillion yen (more than $1.5 trillion), which is over twice the annual budget for Japan.
The latest temblor of magnitude 7.1 on Kyushu island has only underlined how susceptible the area is, for which the Japan Meteorological Agency put out an advisory concerning heightened chances of a big quake. In its past, the Nankai Trough has been known to generate major earthquakes about every 117 years, with the most recent in 1946 reaching a magnitude that produced a 6.9-meter-high tsunami wave.
To mitigate such risks, Japan is increasingly turning to technology. In 2021, Riken and Fujitsu developed an AI tool capable of near real-time predictions of tsunami-induced flooding, a crucial step in disaster preparedness.