Over a thousand earthquakes on an island in Japan. The fear of a major earthquake, amplified by the Manga comic strips
Repeated earthquakes in Tokara Photo Islands: Noriaki Sasaki / AP / Profimedia
The Japanese government warned on Saturday that new powerful earthquakes are possible in the southwestern islands, but urged the population not to believe the unfounded predictions in the Manga comics about a major disaster, reports Reuters, taken over by News.ro.
On Friday, the authorities evacuated some inhabitants of the distant islands near the epicenter of a 5.5 magnitude, which took place off the island of Kyushu, the southerniest main island of Japan. The earthquake on Thursday, strong enough to make it difficult to keep standing, was one of the more than 1,000 earthquakes that took place in the Kagoshima Prefecture Islands, fueling rumors from a comic prediction that a major catastrophe will hit the country this month.
“With the current scientific knowledge, it is difficult to accurately foresee the moment, place or extent of an earthquake,” said Ayataka Ebita, director of the earthquake and tsunami monitoring division within the Japanese weather agency, after an earthquake with a magnitude of 5,4.
“We ask people to rely on scientific evidence,” Ebita pleaded into a press conference.
At the Village Vanguard Bookstore in Tokyo, an advertising banner with the message “Believe or not, is displayed near the drawn band entitled” The future I saw “made by artist Manga Ryo Tatsuki
Manga, which some have performed as a prediction of a catastrophic event that will take place on Saturday, caused some travelers to avoid Japan. According to the latest data, the arrivals in Hong Kong, where the rumors circulated on a large scale, decreased by 11% in May compared to the same month.
Japan registered a record number of visitors this year, April setting a monthly record of 3.9 million passengers.
Ryo Tatsuki, the artist who created the manga “The future I saw”, published for the first time in 1999 and re-published in 2021, said in a statement issued by his publishing house that “he is not a prophet”.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the most active seismic areas in the world. This represents about one fifth of the earthquakes with the magnitude of 6 or greater in the world.
