Japan has just been hit again by a violent earthquake, of magnitude 7.4. However, it would not have generated a tsunami. However, a few deaths and a hundred injuries are to be deplored.
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[EN VIDÉO] Fukushima: History of a Nuclear Disaster On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake occurred in Japan, resulting in the formation of a tsunami that ravaged hundreds of kilometers of coastline and flooded the Fukushima Daiishi nuclear power plant.
Eleven years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japanese shores were violently shaken again yesterday, March 16, 2022, by an earthquake of magnitude 7.4. I’epicenter The earthquake is located about fifty kilometers offshore from the city of Minamisoma (Fukushima department) and about 60 kilometers deep. It is located on the same fault segment that broke during the 2011 earthquake.
A warning for one meter high waves has been issued by the agency. The tremor, long and strongly felt including in Tokyo, deprived more than two million homes of electricity, including nearly 700,000 in the Japanese capital, according to the operator Tepco #AFPpic.twitter.com/BsQwjk0hPO
– Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) March 16, 2022
No tsunami, but a few victims
Occurring at 11:36 p.m. local time, the tremor automatically triggered a tsunami warning. Fortunately, the earthquake would have caused only a wave of 20 centimeters, observed in particular in Ishinomaki, north of Fukushima. The relatively long earthquake, however, deprived thousands of Japanese homes of electricity.
At present, there are four victims and a hundred injured. A train is said to have derailed under the violence of the tremor. Many roads are damaged. Any anomaly was detected at the level of the nuclear plant from Fukushima, stopped since 2011.
The population is however invited to remain vigilant, in the event of new tremors. Several small aftershocks were also felt during the night.
The specter of 2011 still in mind
As a reminder, the earthquake that damaged the nuclear reactor 11 years ago was magnitude much higher than yesterday (Mw 9.1). It had generated a devastating tsunami, which had ravaged nearly 600 kilometers of coastline and caused the death of more than 18,000 people.
Japan is in a region with very high seismic riskdue to the presence of several zones of subduction along its coasts. At this location, the Pacific and Philippine plates are sinking under the Eurasian plate, causing regular earthquakes of strong magnitude. Despite buildings effective paraseismic systems, the population remains vulnerable to the risk of tsunamis.
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