Current Affair 1:

News:

After a 7.1-magnitude earthquake shook southern Japan on Thursday (August 8), the country’s meteorological agency issued its first-ever “megaquake advisory”.

About the megaquake:

Japan’s earthquake scientists say the country should prepare for a possible “megaquake” one day that could kill hundreds of thousands of people – although they stress the warning does not mean a tremor is imminent. The Japan Meteorological Association (JMA) warning is the first issued under new rules drawn up after a 2011 earthquake.

The advisory concerns the Nankai Trough “subduction zone” between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean, where massive earthquakes have hit in the past.

What is the Nankai Trough?

The 800 km undersea trough runs from Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, to the southern tip of Kyushu Island. Earthquakes along the Nankai Trough - an area of seismic activity which stretches along Japan's Pacific coast - have already been responsible for thousands of deaths.

These so-called “megathrust quakes”, which often occur in pairs, have been known to unleash dangerous tsunamis along Japan’s southern coast.

These so-called "megathrust" earthquakes tend to strike every hundred years or so, often in pairs: the last ones were in 1944 and 1946.

 

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