NAGASAKI, Japan (Kyodo) -- Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday canceled his planned four-day trip to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, as the weather agency warned that the risk of a potential massive earthquake in a vast area of the Pacific stretching from southwestern to central Japan has increased.
The Japan Meteorological Agency issued the first such advisory for areas around the Nankai Trough hours after a magnitude-7.1 quake hit the country's southwest on Thursday.
After attending a peace ceremony in Nagasaki marking the 79th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing, Kishida said at a news conference in the city that he canceled the foreign trip to "focus on the government's response and information dissemination" regarding a potential megaquake.
"As the top official in charge of the nation's crisis management, as an extra precaution, I should remain in Japan for at least about a week," while the weather agency is calling on the public to prepare for such a scenario, Kishida added.
He was set to attend Japan's first-ever summit with the Central Asian nations -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on Friday night and issue a joint declaration.
In Mongolia's capital Ulaanbaatar on Monday, the Japanese leader was slated to meet with the country's President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh and Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene.
Earlier on Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a regular news conference that Kishida would "make an appropriate decision" regarding the overseas trip "after taking into account various factors."
According to the government, multiple injuries and damage to buildings have been reported in Miyazaki and two neighboring prefectures in the wake of Thursday's temblor, but no fatalities have been reported so far.
