Jesus gave us many warnings about the world before his second coming. They are recorded in the Olivet Discourse in all three Gospels so it is obvious Jesus wants us to heed His warnings: Matthew 24:1-25,46, Luke 21:5-36 and Mark 13:1-37. Eg. “There will be great earthquakes and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.“ Luke 21:11

Thousands of people in Japan are spending the night in evacuation centres after a powerful earthquake (7.6 magnitude) shook the coastal Noto area in Ishikawa – near the quake’s epicentre. 

Four people are confirmed to have been killed, the Kyodo news agency reports, and dozens of others have been injured. An unknown number of people are trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings in several towns.

The 7.6-magnitude quake struck at around 16:10 local time (07:10 GMT) on Monday. Tsunami warnings were issued and later downgraded. About 60 tremors have been recorded following the initial quake.

The BBC’s former Japan correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes – who was reporting from Taiwan – said several hundred metres of the main expressway between the cities of Toyama and Kanazawa had been ripped apart by a landslide. Video from Uchinada, also in Ishikawa prefecture, showed the surface of a road rippled and cracked. Damage to the Onohiyoshi Shrine in Kanazawa was also pictured. Major highways were closed near the quake’s epicentre and more than 36,000 households were left without power, according to utilities provider Hokuriku Electric Power.

In February 2023, more than 2,000 people were killed when an earthquake, of 7.8 magnitude struck central Turkey and north-west Syria, in one of the most powerful quakes in the region in at least a century, while a second powerful tremor hours later threatened to overwhelm rescue efforts.