(Bloomberg) -- Japan called off an alert for an elevated risk of a megaquake a week after a powerful tremor off the southwestern island of Kyushu prompted the government to warn it could be a sign of a larger seismic event to come.
The warning about the danger of an earthquake around the Nankai Trough was lifted at 5 p.m., after no changes in seismic activity were observed, disaster management minister Yoshifumi Matsumura told reporters.
A quake in the area, where the Philippine sea plate subducts under the Eurasian continental plate, could be more destructive than the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan. The Nankai Trough extends along the coast of the country’s southwestern prefectures.
“The special warning may have ended but that doesn’t mean there’s no possibility of a large-scale tremor,” Matsumura said, adding that it is important to maintain preparedness in a country that’s prone to earthquakes.
The warning prompted some travelers to cancel hotel bookings in the affected region at peak season, domestic media said, while there were also reports of panic buying of water and other emergency supplies. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida canceled a planned trip to Central Asia, while telling reporters the warning didn’t imply a quake would occur within a fixed period of time.
Larger earthquakes have followed smaller ones in the past. Foreshocks started two days before Japan was hit with a magnitude-9 earthquake in 2011, the most powerful recorded in the nation. The tremor and resulting tsunami killed almost 20,000 and triggered a meltdown and radiation leakage at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
--With assistance from Yuko Takeo.
(Updates throughout with official end to warning.)
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