From 5 August, fears of another major earthquake in Japan began to spread on Twitter. The source of the unease was a screenshot from a Japanese talk show, which laid out the following series of earthquakes leading up to the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, alongside a similar series of earthquakes which have struck in recent days.
Here are the two sequences of events.
- In 2011:
22 February, magnitude 6.3 earthquake in New Zealand
15 days later…
9 March, shindo scale “strong 5” earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture
2 days later…
11 March, the catastrophic Tohoku earthquake and tsunami
- In 2013:
21 July, magnitude 6.5 earthquake in New Zealand
14 days later…
4 August, shindo scale “strong 5” earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture
…
Basically, the “pattern” of two quakes which hit recently strikingly resembles the two which presaged the horrific 2011 Tohoku earthquake two years ago. So if this was indeed a pattern, a large earthquake would be expected to hit on 6 August, 2 days after the Miyagi quake.
On Twitter, people in Japan expressed their feelings about this rumour:
“It’s the usual fear.”
“It’s scary, huh (´；ω；｀)”
“Well, probably just a coincidence but…”
“You can’t just take one example to use as a basis, ignoring all other patterns.”
“I wish they’d stop putting this kind of thing on TV!”
While we want to believe this is merely a far-fetched story aimed at boosting viewing figures, it’s important to always be prepared for an earthquake. In any case, we can only fervently hope that these fears are unfounded.
[ Read in Japanese ]