Are Japan's Earthquake Preparations Enough?

The earthquake that struck southern Turkey and northern Syria on the 6th of last month had a magnitude of 7.8 and killed over 50,000 people. The situation remains uneasy, with over 7,000 aftershocks continuing to occur. In Japan, known as an "earthquake-prone country, " concern about possible situations after the Turkish earthquake and the need for cautionary measures have been continuously raised through the media. Japan's seismic vulnerability is structurally weak, and it is facing the possibility of an earthquake similar to the one in Turkey.

 

Japan's Earthquake Vulnerability

The Japanese weekly magazine, Shukan Gendai, released an article titled, "The Day Japan will be Divided by a Turkish-Level Major Earthquake...The Horrific Pancake Crush, " which explains that Japan's situation is structurally weak, and it is not safe to be complacent just because the earthquake occurred in Turkey. The article emphasized the need to learn from the lessons of the Turkish earthquake to prepare for a major earthquake in Japan. The Japan newspaper, Aera, also sent a similar warning through an article titled, "The Fear of a Major Earthquake Linkage."

 

Professor Doda Shinji of the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at the University of Toyko explained that the earthquake's epicenter in Turkey was the Anatolian fault, which is about 3000km long, He said that the active fault in Nishinomiya, which caused the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in 1995 (M7.3), and the Kumamoto earthquake in 2016 (M7.3), is only about 30-40km long, Therefore, if we imagine a geological displacement ten times larger than those, we can imagine how powerful the Turkish earthquake was. He warned that there is a possibility that the ten segments of the fault in central Japan could be interconnected, which could cause an unimaginably massive earthquake.

 

Japan's Earthquake Preparedness

According to Shukan Gendai, the fact that there has not been a large earthquake on the central fault line in Japan for 400 years is a cause for concern. It is said that a gap in the active fault increases the probability of an earthquake occurrence. They warned that if the central fault lines are interconneted and trigger a major earthquake that divides Japan into two, the damage would be immeasurable. Professor Ikago Go, a seismologist at the University of Toyko, said, "The entire buiding collapsed vertically, and the 'pancake crush' occurred, crushing the inside of the building. The problem is that there are still about 7 million houses, mostly residential, with insufficient seismic performance in Japan." He warned that if an earthquake similar to the one in Turkey occurs in Japan, there is a possibility of a pancake crush.

 

Conclusion

The earthquake in Turkey serves as a reminder that Japan, as an earthquake-prone country, is also vulnerable to such disasters. Japan's central fault line has not experienced a large earthquake for 400 years, so the possibility of an earthquake occurrence is increasing. It is essential to take the lessons learned form the Turkish earthquake and apply them to Japan's earthquake preparedness. We must raise awareness of the importance of earthquake preparedness and improve the seismi performance of buildings to minimize the damage from any future earthquake.

 

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