Monday witnessed another strong tremor in Japan injuring around 200 and killing two elderly women. The epicenter of the earthquake measuring 6.8 on Richter scale was the city of Niigata, north west of the capital, Tokyo.
Earthquakes are usually caused when seismic plates beneath the earth’s crust collide against each other. When the oceanic plate collides with the continent plate, the former being denser submerges beneath the latter giving rise to earthquakes. Japan is on such a collision factory, drenched between the Eurasiatic plate on the western side, Philippine plate on south and the Pacific plate dominates eastern side. Such a position makes Japan vulnerable to earthquakes.
Pacific ocean is seismically the most active place, with shivering tremors producing trenches in the largest ocean of the world. Subduction and volcanic arc collision along the Japan trench is mainly responsible for major earthquakes hitting the country surrounded by water on all sides. This is the reason around 20% of the earthquakes occur in this region. The earthquake that hit northwestern Japan on Monday was one of this sort. The tremor leveled many buildings. Houses collapsed like a heap of placards. The jolt was so severe that it an electric transformer building of one of the world’s largest nuclear power plant, Kashiwazaki Kariwa caught fire. However, the fire was soon doused before the inflammation could cause any damage. There was no risk of nuclear leak.
Every building, houses, offices were evacuated in Niigata, so that none suffers any further injury, provided the recent quake being a strong one, aftershocks can be expected. The people who spent sleepless nights in the makeshift camps in the open areas, must have been reminded of the quake of 2004 that hit Japan hard. Sea waves up to 50cm high hit the coasts. However, the tremor did not trigger any landslides and no Tsunami has been predicted.
A country like Japan, so susceptible to tremors should always keep a disaster management program on hand.
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Via: Reuters