A disaster relief training program between the US Marine Corps and Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) started in the western Japanese prefecture of Kochi on Friday, but they canceled a plan to use the US Marine Corps' MV-22 Osprey transport to join in the training, local press reported.

Members of both forces started a series of the day's joint training Friday morning at SDF training facilities in cities of the prefecture in a simulated scenario of a major quake with the epicenter in the Nankai Trough off Japan's Pacific coast, Kyodo News Agency reported.

However, the report said that the transport aircraft, based in the southern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, did not join in the disaster relief training program due to bad weather in western Japan.

According to local media, both forces had initially planned that an Osprey tilt rotor plane would demonstrate their ability to dispatch relief goods, equipment and disaster relief personnel to the coastal prefecture, and also to carry injured people from a Japanese Maritime Defense Force escort vessel to an SDF training field in northeastern Kyushu Island in the afternoon on the day, but the plan was called off later.

The Nankai trough stretches along the east side of the country's main island of Honshu, and an earthquake emanating from there could directly hit the Kochi area and cause a tsunami.