1000 Earthquakes in Japan Island Chain

Seven of the twelve islands along the coast of southwestern Japan are inhabited, with 700 islanders living there in all.

The island chain lies on 4 main tectonic plates the border of the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire is group of volcanoes, earthquake sites, and tectonic plates throughout the Pacific Ocean and spans 25,000 miles across. The region normally has tremors but the number of them currently is uncommon.

Japan is among the most seismically in active countries on the globe. Japan, the archipelago, goes through around 1500 tremors. It is also accounted for about 20 percent of Earth’s earthquakes says BBC. So Japan has lots of earthquakes in a year. But for the past two weeks, this is has been different. To describe it, this is what some of the Tokara islanders say: “It feels like it is always shaking,” one resident told the regional broadcaster MBC. “It is very scary to even fall asleep.”

“It is not clear when all of this will end. I should think about whether to evacuate my kids,” another said from Global News. The absence of hospitals on some of the islands means that first aid is a six hour long ferry ride away.

“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 monitoring division from CNN after a 5.4-magnitude quake shook the islands on Saturday. It is very difficult because we don’t have the equipment to and some can come abruptly or slowly sneak up.

1,031 earthquakes were archived in total from June onwards. People don’t know when to evacuate so those too late might die. Conduct frequent evacuation drills so people are prepared and act calm when a disaster like an earthquake happens. People should provide resources and support or donate to local governments to enable working execution of disaster mitigation and response measures. Even though there are no big damages reported, some islanders have been suggested to prepare for moving to a safer place if the commonness doesn’t cease.