Tokyo in the next four years has a high chance of experiencing a major earthquake, according to data from University of Tokyo Earthquake Research Institute.
In a report on Monday, The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper cited the institute as saying the Kanto region, which includes Tokyo, has as high as a 70 percent chance that a major quake will occur in the near future.
The data was compiled from observations on seismic activity in Japan after the massive 9.0 earthquake that rocked the northeast in March.
According to the Yomiuri, a quake smaller than the Tohoku one in March would kill as many as 11,000 people and severely damage or destroy 850,000 buildings in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
A quake in the region “is of concern because the greater Tokyo urban region has a population of 42 million and is the center of approximately 40 percent of the nation’s activities,” the institute wrote in a report by the Special Project for Earthquake Disaster Mitigation in Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The report said it would cost the country as much as $1 trillion in damages.
The government’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion in the past has put the risk of a 7.0-magnitude temblor in the region at 70 percent, but in the next 30 years, the report said.
Since the disaster in March, Tokyo has experienced almost daily medium and small tremors.
“Intensified seismic activity will continue from several to 10 more years,” Professor Naoshi Hirata told the publication. “It’s highly probable a strong quake with a magnitude of about 7 will occur during that time.”
The last time Tokyo was hit by a massive earthquake was the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake that flattened much of the city and caused extensive damage because of fires.
