The government approved on Friday a 10-year program aimed at reducing by 80 percent the number of victims from a major earthquake experts fear will someday strike in the Nankai Trough off central and western Japan.

In the worst-case scenario, the government estimates the tally from such a quake and ensuing tsunami would exceed 300,000.

The trough runs from Suruga Bay, off Shizuoka Prefecture, to the Sea of Hyuga, off Miyazaki.