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On the afternoon of the 15th, the Japanese government announced the end of the one-week "super-earthquake warning" for the Nankai Trough in Japan. This "super-earthquake warning" was issued during Japan's peak tourist season and on the eve of the Obon Festival, scaring away many tourists. Japanese society began to reflect on what else can be done to reassure people besides issuing "super-earthquake warnings"?

Sudden warning awakens disaster memory

According to a report by the Earthquake Research Committee of the Japanese government, a strong earthquake occurs in the Nankai Trough in Japan every one or two hundred years, and the probability of another strong earthquake occurring within 30 years is as high as 70% to 80%, with an expected magnitude of 8 to 9.

There is controversy in the academic community about this statement. Professor Shoichi Yoshioka of Kobe University believes that even on the second day of the "super-large earthquake warning", the probability of the Nankai Trough earthquake is "less than 1%". In his opinion, the Japanese authorities have exaggerated the possibility of a strong earthquake and are suspected of "crying wolf". Robert Geller, a seismologist and professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo, believes that earthquakes are not cyclical and it is meaningless to predict when the next earthquake will come based on the time of the previous earthquake.

The "super earthquake warning" awakens people's deep-seated fear of strong earthquakes. "Humans never know when an earthquake will strike." After the earthquake occurred off the coast of Miyazaki Prefecture on the 8th, 22-year-old Japanese college student Yota Sugai prepared emergency supplies such as food and water, and prepared to go to the coast to help relatives plan an escape route.

The Japanese are used to earthquakes, so what about foreign tourists? John Dabb, a travel blogger in Japan, said that he saw a couple from Europe cancel their trip to Osaka because of this, and he himself received many emails from fans asking whether they should change their travel plans.

Susumu Nishitani, a representative of the hotel union in Kochi Prefecture on Shikoku Island, said at least 9,400 people have canceled their hotel reservations since the warning was issued last week, causing losses of about 140 million yen. Thousands more people have canceled their travel plans to Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama City on Shikoku Island, the prototype of Yubaba's hot spring house in Hayao Miyazaki's animated film "Spirited Away."

Only by being prepared can we avoid chaos when facing an earthquake

How can tourists not be afraid of earthquakes and not panic when they are in danger? Masaru Takayama, president of a travel agency in Kyoto, believes that the government should be more prepared in addition to issuing early warnings. "At present, most towns only provide Japanese versions of disaster risk maps for earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, etc., and there is too little information and advice for foreign tourists."

Ashley Harvey, a tourism marketing analyst who has worked in Japan tourism for 15 years, said that although the Japan National Tourism Organization has provided tourists with the latest natural disaster information and safety tips through social media, hotels, museums and other places with dense tourist traffic should still provide paper information tips. "We have to remember that during the 2011 earthquake, communications in most parts of northeastern Japan were interrupted." Harvey believes that in the current situation where the government cannot provide paper versions of multilingual disaster prevention and relief guidelines, "the best way for foreign tourists to deal with it is to follow the practices of hotel staff or locals, because they have been preparing for natural disasters all their lives and they know what to do."

"Time bomb"? Other issues cannot be ignored

In a sense, the Nankai Trough seems to be a "time bomb" buried around Japan. Half a year after the 2011 earthquake, the Japanese government set its disaster prevention goal as preventing the largest possible earthquake and focusing on preventing the "Nankai Trough Earthquake". In 2012, the Japanese government announced the possible intensity of the Nankai Trough earthquake, in 2013 announced the basic policy for strong earthquake countermeasures in the Nankai Trough, and in 2019 created and operated the "Nankai Trough Earthquake Temporary Information" disaster prevention and early warning system.

But Emi Sugimoto, associate professor of disaster prevention at Osaka University, believes that this should not cause us to ignore risks elsewhere.

"The Nankai Trough area has received earthquake preparedness funds from the central government." Sugimoto Megumi said that although the Fukuoka area where she had worked experienced the "3.11" earthquake, it was not listed as an earthquake high-risk area and lacked government support. In fact, since the "3.11" earthquake in 2011, Japan has also experienced the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake and the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake. Sugimoto Megumi believes that the Noto Peninsula earthquake exposed that Japan still has many loopholes in responding to strong earthquakes. She believes that paying too much attention to the Nankai Trough may cause people in other places to relax their vigilance. Xinmin Evening News reporter Qi Xu