Japan’s government warned on Saturday about more powerful strong earthquakes in waters southwest of its most important islands, but called on the public not to believe unfounded predictions of a major disaster.
On Friday, the authorities evacuated some residents from remote islands close to the episent of a 5.5-strength shake from the tip of the southernmost main island Kyushu.
This earthquake on Thursday, strong enough to make it difficult, was one of more than 1,000 trembling on the islands of Kagoshima Prefecture in the last two weeks, which has given rise to rumors derived from a cartoon prediction that a major disaster would hit the country this month.
“With our current scientific knowledge, it is difficult to predict the exact time, place or scale of an earthquake,” said Ayataka EBITA, director of Japan Meteorological Agency’s earthquake and Tsunami surveillance department, after a 5.4-form earthquake shook the area again on Saturday.
“We ask that people base their understanding on scientific evidence,” EBITA told a press conference.
The manga, which some have interpreted as predicting a catastrophic event on Saturday, has asked some travelers to avoid Japan. Arrivals from Hong Kong, where rumors have circulated far, dropped 11% in May from the same month last year, according to the latest data.
Japan has had a record visit numbers this year, with April having set a record monthly height of 3.9 million travelers.
Ryo Tatsuki, the artist behind the manga “the future I saw”, first released in 1999 and was released in 2021, said she was “not a prophet”, in a statement from her publisher.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismically active areas. It accounts for about one -fifth of the world’s earthquakes in the order of 6 or larger.
