Nankai Trough Quake Deaths Could Top 130,000 in Osaka

Osaka, Oct. 30 (Jiji Press)--A large-scale earthquake expected to occur in the Nankai Trough in the Pacific Ocean off mainland Japan could result in over 130,000 deaths in the western Japan prefecture of Osaka, the prefectural government said Wednesday. If people do not act promptly to escape tsunami following the earthquake, the death toll could reach a maximum of 133,891, the government reported at a meeting of its disaster response team. The figure is more than 13 times the national government's estimate of 9,800. But a swift evacuation would reduce the number of deaths to 8,806, according to Osaka's estimate. In August, the prefectural government said that based on its own data analysis, including estimates of how much sea walls would sink as a result of the earthquake, the ensuing tsunami could flood an area 3.6 times larger than estimated by the national government. Areas around Osaka Station could be submerged in 2 meters of water, the prefectural government said. These estimates were based on a scenario that a huge earthquake hit the western Japan region at 6 p.m. on a winter day. The death toll would reach the highest if 20 pct of the people evacuate within 10 minutes after the earthquake and 50 pct within 20 minutes, while the remaining 30 pct do not evacuate. As many as 132,967 lives are expected to be lost in the tsunami, with 90 pct of the deaths projected to concentrate in the city of Osaka. If everybody starts evacuating within 10 minutes, the number of tsunami victims would fall to 7,882, while 735 are expected to die under collapsed buildings and 176 due to fire, the Osaka government estimated. END