A really big earthquake is expected to hit Japan. We just don’t know when.

First, a little jerk. It’s small enough to keep standing, but big enough to rock nearby shelves, forcing your eyes to pry out in search of imminent danger. Your heart skips a beat. Every second that passes feels like a minute. wait.

Then comes the rumble. Powerfully, it springs from the depths of the earth on which you stand, and panic spreads among the people close to you. Things are swinging helplessly. Everyone is covered under desks, waiting for stillness.

This was the last experience of Hiroshi Shibahara, deputy director on the island of Akusikijima in southern Japan. On Thursday, the island felt a powerful 6.1-magnitude quake, the most powerful it has seen in more than two decades.

“We’ve had frequent earthquakes in the past few days, but none of them have been this huge,” he told VICE World News. “After that big event, you start to think that a really big guy could come any day now – and that makes me even more scared.”

Since December 4, several small islands such as Akusikijima, in Kagoshima Prefecture, have been hit by an uncomfortable number of earthquakes. Over the course of five days, these islands recorded 231 earthquakes. Although experts say the frequency was not unusual, nearly half of the small island’s 75 residents have been evacuated, due to fear and difficulty sleeping.

As one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, Japan is no stranger to such earthquakes. Earlier this year, the Kagoshima island chain itself was hit by more than 200 earthquakes in just three days. On December 3, eastern Yamanashi Prefecture felt a 4.9 earthquake. Less than three hours later, a 5.4-magnitude earthquake shook southern Wakayama Prefecture.

Government seismologists predicted in 2018 that there was a 70 percent chance of an earthquake of magnitude eight to nine that would hit Japan within the next 30 years, with intensity similar to that of the 2004 Indian Ocean and tsunami, which killed nearly a quarter of a million. People. The earthquake is expected to come from the Nankai Trough, an ocean floor trench that stretches from central Japan to the southern island of Kyushu.

But the recent string of tremors happening across Japan is exactly what scares some, prompting them to prepare for the worst – now.

Koji Muraoka, a 51-year-old businessman in southern Japan, lives in an area that could be inundated by waves over 17 meters in height if the Nankai True earthquake triggers a tsunami.

“This tsunami can come in 14 minutes, so I look at the hazard maps and remember the escape routes,” he told VICE World News. After these recent earthquakes, he examined evacuation plans and ways to communicate with loved ones in case phone lines were down.

“I have a backpack with clothes, shoes and other daily necessities for when I need to go to the shelter,” he said.

Seiko Yamazaki, an emergency response trainer who lives in the greater Tokyo area, said the trauma of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake experience — which caused devastating tsunami and collapsed nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture, killing more than 18,000 people — continues to plague it today. She said she was on her way home after picking up her children from nursery school when the ground suddenly shook. “It was the first time I had such severe tremors, and I had no idea how to protect my children,” she told VICE World News.

She said it was her naivety that prompted her to teach herself how to prepare for disaster. In addition to being a registered teacher for emergency response, she purchased furniture preventers, break-resistant panes of glass to put in windows, and a disaster radio.

“After experiencing the Great Tohoku earthquake, all the pieces of furniture I bought are shorter than me – less than a meter in height,” she added. Other items that are placed higher than Yamazaki’s height are attached with adhesive.

Nankai Trough is an ocean floor basin that extends from central Shizuoka Prefecture to the southern island of Kyushu. This trench is where the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate meet, two tectonic plates that lie in the Japan sandwich. The massive Nankai Tro earthquake is feared to be a central tremor at the meeting point of these plates, as earthquakes have historically occurred at intervals of 100 or 150 years.

The last earthquake to rock this region of Japan was the Nankai earthquake in 1946, killing 1,362 people. Within the next 30 years, Japan is expected to kill 230,000 people in the worst case scenario, as tsunami waves swell 10 meters high.

Although the expected disasters of the Nankai mega earthquake are alarming, scientists say the recent tremors may have nothing to do with the “big quake.”

Earthquakes in the southern Kagoshima island chain and eastern Yamanashi Prefecture will not have an impact on the Nankai Basin, said Kushun Yamaoka, a seismologist and professor of environmental studies at Nagoya University.

“The previous series of earthquakes are simply too far from the Nankai Basin to have an impact, and as for the latter — the earthquake happened on the other side of the Izu Peninsula, which is the boundary of two separate plates, so there was no impact,” he told VICE World News.

“It is difficult to determine what earthquake occurred in Wakayama Prefecture, but I think we can ignore the impact it could have on the Nankai Basin because its magnitude was too small to have an effect,” he said.

In preparation for the massive Nankai Trog earthquake, the Japanese government built seawalls to protect against large tsunamis, rebuilt old railways to withstand greater seismic activity, and improved earthquake alerts to inform residents faster of upcoming earthquakes.

Schools also regularly conduct their own earthquake drills, which is a requirement by law. At Shikoku University in southern Tokushima Prefecture, students participated in the latest drill on the Nankai Troye mega earthquake on December 7.

Yoshiyuki Sano, the school’s director of corporate affairs who helped carry out the exercises, told VICE World News that because his school is close to the ocean, tsunamis of five meters or higher — caused by earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher — could submerge the school within 40 to 50 minutes.

After hearing the campus announcement, students gathered at the school’s evacuation site and practiced using fire hydrants, in case a fire broke out from the earthquake. Sano said the students responded well to the exercises. “Three days before the exercises, there was a 4.0-magnitude earthquake near here. For this reason, I think the students took it more seriously than we expected,” Sano said.

Sano said he was at the Fukushima prefectural office on the day of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. He remembers how everything about him fell, and he had to escape from the office’s eleventh floor, filled with fear. “I was ready to die. But – and this is the truth – I remember hoping that I would die without pain, and I think there was nothing that could be done,” he said.

No one knows exactly when the “mega” will come, and the uncertainty only adds to the growing possibility that Japan will be shaken to its core.

But for Morauca, the 51-year-old entrepreneur who’s ready to run with his emergency bag at any time, even if he lives a stone’s throw from waves that will likely inundate his entire life, there is no other place he’d call home.

“I know it’s strange,” he said, “but I still live here because this is my hometown which I love.”

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