The frequent earthquakes in the offshore islands off Kagoshima, Japan over the past week have drawn attention

Recently, the Tugara Islands off the coast of Kagoshima, Japan, have been experiencing frequent earthquakes. One of them was a magnitude 5 strong earthquake, which has drawn attention. The local government has established a disaster warning headquarters and opened the community for residents to take refuge.

The Tokara Islands are located between Yakushima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture and Amami Oshima Island in Okinawa. The seven inhabited small islands are Kounojima, Nakanojima, Suwano-jima, Hirajima, Oishi Island, Treasure Island and Kobo Island.

The Japan Meteorological Agency measured that from June 21 to 10 a.m. on July 1, a total of 736 earthquakes occurred in the Togara Islands. A 60-year-old islander said, "Earthquakes often start shaking from below, which is so disgusting."

Local residents were worried that this was a sign of a major earthquake. A 54-year-old female villager living by the sea said, "Before an earthquake occurs, the sea surface makes a rumbling sound." It was a terrifying sound that could be clearly heard while sleeping.

The island is 250 kilometers away from Kagoshima City. Apart from helicopter transportation, the only means of transportation is the twin-weekly ferry. Since the frequent earthquakes, the 14 primary and junior high school students at the only village-run school on the island, "Evil Stone Island Academy", have been wearing safety helmets to class.

Previously, a Japanese female manga artist predicted a major disaster on July 5. Netizens were debating whether this would cause a major earthquake in other parts of Japan or a precursor to a major earthquake in the Nankai Trough Trough.

The Asahi Shimbun quoted an analysis by Hisayoshi Yokose, an associate professor of Marine volcanology at Kumamoto University in Japan, stating that the Tugara Islands have always been a frequently earthquake-prone area, with continuous minor earthquakes occurring every few years. From a scientific perspective, the scale of this earthquake could not have spread to distant areas, and there is no direct connection between it and the earthquakes in the trough of the South China Sea.

He pointed out that major earthquakes occur approximately every week. It is speculated that this stage will start on June 27th and last until around July 10th.

Yokose also stated that after experiencing multiple disasters such as the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Japan has strengthened its earthquake observation system. With the improvement of observation accuracy, information that was previously overlooked in earthquake observations can also be discovered.