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Abstract
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This week, a series of powerful earthquakes struck the west coast of Japan, killing dozens of people and reducing many buildings to rubble.
A magnitude-7.6 earthquake hit Ishikawa prefecture on the country's main island, Honshu, on 1 January. It was the strongest quake to occur in the prefecture in more than a century. "It's probably one of the largest earthquakes on the west coast of Japan," says Takuya Nishimura, an earthquake scientist at Kyoto University in Japan.
The massive earthquake prompted tsunami warnings, with ocean waves reaching more than 1 metre high in some areas along the coastline. By the following morning, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) had recorded a further 146 smaller earthquakes on Ishikawa's Noto Peninsula, including one that the US Geological Survey (USGS) measured at a magnitude of 6.2. The tremors have resulted in more than 60 deaths, with reports of dozens more expected as rescue teams search through the rubble.
What caused the earthquake?
Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, because it sits on top of four converging tectonic plates that constantly grind together. Some 1,500 earthquakes strike the country every year, although the majority are too mild to be felt. Most major earthquakes in Japan are caused by the Pacific Plate off the east coast, which slides beneath another plate. This subduction was the driving force behind Japan's largest ever recorded earthquake -- a magnitude-9.1 quake that struck the Tohoku region in 2011 and triggered a massive tsunami -- says Yoshihiro Hiramatsu, a seismologist at Kanazawa University in Japan. ...
Language: en |