A study found that 120 million Japanese people could die from a super-massive volcanic eruption.
Today (10th), ‘Aera’, a weekly magazine affiliated with the Asahi Shimbun, reported on the research results of Yoshiyuki Tatsumi, an emeritus professor at Kobe University in Japan, and said this.
Professor Tatsumi’s team calculated the damage if an eruption on the same scale as the Aira-Tanzawa eruption (magnitude 8.3) occurred in central Kyushu 28,000 years ago.
Studies have shown that if an eruption of this magnitude occurs again in Kyushu, the entire area of Kyushu will be covered with pyrophyllum and ash within two hours, killing 7 million people.
It is predicted that within one day, 40 million people will be damaged by volcanic ash more than 50 cm high, and 120 million people will die.
According to the professor’s team, the probability of a magnitude 7 supermassive eruption within the next 100 years is 0.9% and 0.3% for a magnitude 8. Considering that the probability of occurrence of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which caused massive damage in 1995, was 0.028% for 30 years, the professor’s team explained that it is by no means a small number.
Toshiyasu Nagao, president of the Japan Earthquake Prediction Society and visiting professor in the Department of Earthquake Prediction and Tsunami Research at the Tokai University Marine Research Institute, also predicted that a catastrophic eruption with a scale of 7 or greater in Japan would be imminent.
Professor Nagao said, “In the last 10,000 years, there have been 16 volcanoes that have caused an eruption larger than the great eruption of Mt. Fuji in 1707 (magnitude 5.26).
Professor Tatsumi said, “A supermassive eruption is a disaster that is not strange at any time.”