Tokyo Residents Anxious About the Big One

May 9, 2012
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Last year’s massive Tohoku earthquake and the government’s slow response to it combined with recent revelations of a major fault line running directly beneath Tokyo have heightened the mega-metropolis’s fears of the ‘Big One’ and what it might do to the capital. The last major earthquake to strike Tokyo occurred in 1923. The magnitude-7.9 temblor [...]

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Massive Tsunami Possible for Japan Island

April 23, 2012
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A new study suggests a tsunami measuring 114 feet could strike Japan in the event of a powerful offshore earthquake near Hokkaido. The interim report by an expert panel at the Hokkaido Disaster Management Council also suggests the maximum magnitude for such an earthquake is 9.1 rather than 8.6 as previously believed. Such an earthquake [...]

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Looming Cascadia Earthquake Sends Tribes to Higher Ground

March 13, 2012
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The small coastal community had just quieted for the night when a massive earthquake set the ground pitching and bucking like a wild horse. So great was the shaking that liquification transformed area marches into quicksand that swallowed homes whole. The violent shaking lasted for nearly a minute and when it was done, much of [...]

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One Year Later, Megaquake Raises More Questions than it Answers

March 11, 2012
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On the one-year anniversary of the modern world’s most powerful earthquake, seismologists, geologists, and other scientists note that the biggest lesson learned from the magnitude-9 Tohoku megaquake may be that we know even less than originally thought. The March 11 earthquake took the world’s most earthquake-savvy nation utterly by surprise. Temblors of that size were [...]

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Valentine’s Day Earthquake a Sign from Cascadia?

February 16, 2012
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While much of the country was celebrating Valentine’s Day, a strong earthquake struck approximately 160 miles off Oregon’s coast and was felt as far south as San Francisco. What makes the magnitude-6 temblor of possible concern was both its magnitude and location. Although nowhere near the strength of some of the truly large earthquakes that [...]

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Japan 2011 Earthquakes Visualized

February 7, 2012
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An astonishing new video of Japan’s magnitude-3 or higher earthquakes during 2011 illustrates just how at-risk the island-nation is to nature’s most powerful force. Using a simple keying system to connote both the magnitude and depth of each temblor, the visualization shows the endless series of quakes that strike the tectonic boundaries that more or [...]

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