Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has canceled his travel plans to Central Asia following warnings from meteorological researchers about an increased risk of a “mega-earthquake” along the Pacific coast. This decision comes after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the southwestern island of Kyushu on Thursday, resulting in eight injuries and a tsunami warning.

Kishida was scheduled to visit Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia on Friday, but he opted to remain in Japan for at least a week due to the current situation. “As Prime Minister, with the highest responsibility for crisis management, I decided that I should stay in Japan,” he told reporters.

He added that the Japanese public may feel “very anxious” after the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) issued its first advisory under a new system developed after the devastating 9.0 magnitude earthquake in 2011, which led to a deadly tsunami and a nuclear disaster, resulting in approximately 18,500 lives lost. The JMA announced that “the probability of a major earthquake occurring is higher than normal, but this is not an indication that a large earthquake is certain to take place.”

Kishida’s cancellation is part of the government’s preparations for potential future disasters, according to the public broadcaster NHK. The JMA’s warning pertains to the Nankai Trough, an 800-kilometer-long trench on the ocean floor where two tectonic plates meet, and where previous earthquakes have triggered giant tsunamis. The most recent earthquake along the Nankai Trough occurred on December 21, 1946.

Japan sits atop four major tectonic plates and experiences around 1,500 earthquakes each year, most of which are minor. Even during more significant tremors, the impact is typically limited due to advanced building techniques and well-trained emergency response procedures. The government has previously stated that there is approximately a 70% chance of a mega-earthquake occurring within the next 30 years, which could severely affect large parts of Japan’s Pacific coast and threaten around 300,000 lives, according to experts.