Hong Kong Airlines will temporarily suspend two Japanese routes following unfounded rumors which led to a sudden decline in bookings.
The carrier cancelled all flights to Kagoshima (KOJ) and Kumamoto (KMJ) for July and August following a rumor that a major earthquake was expected to rock parts of Japan this summer.
In 1999, manga artist Ryo Tatsuki published a comic book titled “The Future I Saw”, ‘predicting’ that a major disaster would take place on March 11, 2011. This so happened to be the same day that a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami struck off the coast of Tōhoku, in which almost 18,000 people lost their lives.
After a complete version of Tatsuki’s work was published in 2021, her comic has come to light again as it predicts that another major disaster will occur near Japan on July 5, 2025. According to the comic, another earthquake will strike, with a resulting tsunami three times the size of the one prophesized for 2011.
The book says, “July 5 this year, a crack will open up under the seabed between Japan and the Philippines, sending ashore waves three times as tall as those from the Tohoku earthquake.”
While there is no scientific way of predicting when next an earthquake will strike, mass paranoia has already set in as multiple travel agencies in the region have reported a sharp decline in bookings for flights and tours to parts of Japan.
Some agencies have seen bookings drop by as much as 80% since May, and Hong Kong Airlines is following suit after passenger demand between Hong Kong and the two Japanese cities of Kagoshima and Kumamoto plummeted. Affecting passengers will be allowed to re-book on other Hong Kong Airlines flights, or request a voucher for the value of their ticket.
I am not a superstitious person myself, so these cancellations seem really bizarre, but everyone has their own belief system and Hong Kong Airlines is reacting more to the fact that their flights will be mostly empty rather than to the rumor itself.
