The Japanese Prime Minister has canceled his planned visit to Central Asia due to an advisory about a potential mega earthquake.

Tokyo [Japan], August 10: Japan's Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, has canceled his planned visit to Central Asia next week as the country intensifies its disaster preparedness following an advisory warning of a potential massive earthquake along the Pacific coast, according to local media reports on Saturday.

The cancellation of the four-day trip to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia was reported by Kyodo News, citing that the decision was made a day after the Japan Meteorological Agency issued the advisory.

The agency noted a higher-than-usual probability of a megaquake occurring around the Nankai Trough.

This advisory followed a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck off Japan's southern coast on Thursday.

The Japan Meteorological Agency reported that tsunami waves up to 1.6 feet were detected along parts of Kyushu's southern coast and the nearby island of Shikoku about 30 minutes after the quake.

The quake most strongly impacted Nichinan city and surrounding areas in Miyazaki prefecture on Kyushu.

Reports from Japan's NHK public television indicated broken windows at the Miyazaki airport, located near the earthquake's epicenter.

Additionally, Japan's weather agency reported a separate earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 that jolted areas near Tokyo on Friday. This quake, which struck at 7:57 p.m., registered a lower 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7 in western Kanagawa Prefecture. The quake's focus was 13 kilometers underground, and no tsunami warning was issued.

Kyodo News also reported that Central Japan Railway Co. temporarily halted its Tokaido Shinkansen Line bullet train service between Shinagawa and Shizuoka stations as a precaution.

The Nankai Trough is an ocean-floor trench along Japan's Pacific coast, where the Eurasian and Philippine Sea tectonic plates meet.

Japan, located on the seismically active "Ring of Fire," faces the possibility of a magnitude 8 to 9 earthquake occurring along the Nankai Trough in the coming decades. Such an event could potentially shake a vast area of the country and trigger tsunami waves exceeding 30 meters in height.

Earlier this year, on January 1, an earthquake in Japan's north-central region of Noto resulted in the deaths of over 240 people.