|| By Santosh
The quake that struck southern Japan last Thursday was not a major one - at least by Japanese standards.
Little damage was caused by the magnitude 7.1 earthquake, and the tsunami warning was promptly lowered.
But a warning that had never been issued before came right after the earthquake.
According to Japan's metorological agency, there was a higher chance of a "major earthquake". The prime minister of Japan has decided to stay in the nation for the upcoming week instead of traveling to a meeting in Central Asia.
In Japan, many people started thinking about the "big one"—a once-in-a-century earthquake about which they had been warned all their lives.
The last two of these so-called "megathrust" earthquakes, which occurred in 1944 and 1946, typically occur every hundred years or so.
According to experts, there is between a 70% and 80% likelihood that a magnitude 8 or 9 earthquake will occur somewhere along the trough during the next 30 years. In the worst-case scenario, the estimated damage and potential death toll might reach the hundreds of thousands.
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