Japan experts warn of future risk of giant tsunami

TOKYO (AP) -- Revised estimates of the potential impact an offshore earthquake could have on Japan show that much of the country's Pacific coast could be inundated by a tsunami more than 20 meters (65 feet) high.

According to Japanese media reports Sunday, a government-commissioned panel of experts says a tsunami unleashed by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake in the Nankai trough, which runs east of Japan's main island of Honshu to the southern island of Kyushu, could top 34 meters (112 feet) at its highest.

An earlier forecast in 2003 put the potential maximum height of such a tsunami at less than 20 meters (66 feet).

The revisions are based on new research following last March's magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami, which devastated a long stretch of Japan's northeastern coast.

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