Great Earthquake in the Nankai Trough

From the Japan Times:

"Locations known as slip-deficit regions, which could trigger powerful earthquakes, are accumulating underground in the Pacific Ocean off central Japan where the Nankai Trough quake is forecast, research by a team of Japan Coast Guard officers published Tuesday in the British science journal Nature showed.

Slip-deficit regions are places where friction prevents tectonic plates from moving over each other. This causes energy to accumulate and eventually leads to a mega-earthquake.

The latest research discovered there is an accumulation of slip-deficit regions in areas off Shikoku and around the Kumano Sea south of Mie Prefecture, and in a region off Shizuoka Prefecture where the Tokai earthquake is predicted to hit."