Oarfish omen spells earthquake disaster for Japan

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo Published: 7:00AM GMT 04 March 2010

The hulk oarfish can grow up to five metres in length and is customarily to be found at inlet of 1,000 metres Photo: NORBERT WU / MINDEN PICTURES

The entrance of the fish follows Saturday"s mortal 8.8 bulk trembler in Chile and the Jan twelve tremors in Haiti, that claimed an estimated 200,000 lives.

A upheaval with a bulk of 6.4 has additionally struck southern Taiwan.

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This unreasonable of tectonic movements around the Pacific "Rim of Fire" is worsening regard that Japan - the majority earthquake-prone nation in the universe - is subsequent in line for a vital earthquake.

Those concerns have been stoked by the unexplained entrance of a fish that is well known traditionally as the Messenger from the Sea God"s Palace.

The hulk oarfish can grow up to five metres in length and is customarily to be found at inlet of 1,000 metres and really frequency on top of 200 metres from the surface. Long and slim with a dorsal fin the length of the body, the oarfish resembles a snake.

In new weeks, 10 specimens have been found possibly cleared ashore or in fishing nets off Ishikawa Prefecture, half-a-dozen have been held in nets off Toyama Prefecture and others have been reported in Kyoto, Shimane and Nagasaki prefectures, all on the northern coast.

According to normal Japanese lore, the fish climb to the aspect and beach themselves to advise of an imminent trembler - and there are systematic theories that bottom-dwelling fish might really well be receptive to movements in seismic error lines and action in uncharacteristic ways in allege of an trembler - but experts here are fixation some-more conviction in their consistent high-tech monitoring of the tectonic plates underneath the surface.

"In very old times Japanese people believed that fish warned of entrance earthquakes, quite catfish," Hiroshi Tajihi, emissary executive of the Kobe Earthquake Centre, told the Daily Telegraph.

"But these are only old superstitions and there is no systematic attribute in between these sightings and an earthquake," he said.