More earthquakes expected in Japan
Big quake could be part of a string of aftershocks, say geologist
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| The earthquake caused devastating tsunamis along the Japanese coast |
At least 200 people have died in Japan, in what seems to have been the most powerful and devastating earthquake in Japan since records began around 50 years ago. The quake has left the nation in a state of shock, and geologists warn that the seismic (unstable) risk remains high.
The Japanese government declared an emergency following the magnitude-8.9 earthquake that struck today (11 March 2011) at 14:46 local time near the east coast of Honshu Island. Five nuclear power stations in the quake region have automatically shut down, and around 2,000 people living near the Fukushima nuclear plant in Okuma were advised to evacuate after the water-based cooling system for one of the plant's reactor cores failed, according to a statement from the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, an industry trade group. The statement said that sufficient water remained to cover the core, and that emergency generators were being rushed to the site to restart the cooling system.
Evacuations (leaving a place in an orderly fashion/manner, especially for protection) were also ordered in coastal/coastwise communities in Hawaii, the Philippines and other countries with Pacific coasts, which had been alerted about the approaching tsunami.
Geologists suspect that today's quake was actually an aftershock of a much weaker magnitude-7.2 quake on 9 March. They warn that seismic stress has not yet relaxed in some particularly vulnerable (capable of being wounded) parts of Japan, including the Tokyo region, 400 kilometers south of today's epicenter (center of earthquake).
Both quakes are the result of the Pacific tectonic (movement of the earth's crust) plate sliding beneath the Japanese islands. At eight centimeters per year, convergence/overlap along this subduction (a geological process in which one edge of a crustal plate is forced sideways and downward into the mantle below another plate) zone is extremely fast in geological terms.