Rice and bottled mineral water gradually disappeared from shelves in Tokyo in the five days following warnings of an increased risk of a major earthquake along the Nankai fault in southeastern Japan.
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The shelves where rice of various varieties and types of processing are usually stored were almost empty. The most common varieties have completely disappeared, leaving bags of unprocessed brown rice, which is much more expensive than regular rice.
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In the section where they sell mineral water in boxes, there is an unusually large amount of empty space and there are only boxes of tea and drinks. Instead of water, there is an announcement that “due to the influence of information in the media about the earthquake due to instability in providing the (required) quantity of goods, some of them have run out, and in some cases a quantity limit has been introduced on their sale.”
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At the same time, products that customers usually approach infrequently are displayed prominently: processed rice, instant noodles, canned food. On a shelf with canned goods, you can already judge the most popular types by the gaps that appear. Some of the most popular types of toilet paper and napkins have also quietly disappeared.
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At the same time, nothing in the stores even remotely resembles panic or rush buying. Buyers calmly place a moderate amount of goods in baskets and carts, and there are no queues at the checkout counters.
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A magnitude 7.1 earthquake occurred on August 8 off the southeastern coast of Kyushu in the Hyuga Nada Sea in the Pacific Ocean. A few hours later, an expert group from Japan’s Main Meteorological Agency announced an increased risk of a powerful earthquake on the Nankai fault, which runs along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean from the Japanese prefecture of Shizuoka to the islands of Shikoku and Kyushu.
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Following the warning, the central government ordered 707 cities and towns in 29 prefectures to review countermeasures against the Nankai Fault earthquake and inform citizens. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida even canceled a planned visit to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Mongolia in order to be able to monitor the measures being taken. At the same time, he said that there was no talk about the need to evacuate or about the specific timing of the earthquake in the Nankai Fault area, and called for people to routinely check their preparedness in case of a natural disaster.
