Saturday, May 30, 2015

More Quakes Near Japan









Third earthquake in one week hits Japan, no tsunami warning or reports of damage - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)




Another earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.4 and a depth of 13.4 kilometres, has hit off the Izu Islands in Japan this morning following Saturday's 7.8 earthquake, according to United States Geological Survey (USGS).


There was no immediate tsunami warning following the quake.

Saturday's earthquake which struck off the Japanese coast, geologists said, shook buildings in Tokyo and set off car alarms.

Residential buildings swayed for around a minute as the quake built in intensity around 8:30pm (9:30pm AEST).


The epicentre was 676 kilometres below the Earth's surface and was centred on a remote spot in the Pacific Ocean around 870 kilometres south of Tokyo, the USGS said.
Yoshiyuki Sasamoto, who runs a traditional guest house on Chichijima, one of the closest inhabited places to the epicentre, said the shaking had been violent.
"Initially a weaker quake hit and it stopped. Then the big one came. It was so strong that I couldn't stand still and couldn't walk," he said.
Both runways at Narita Airport, the main international gateway to Tokyo, were temporarily closed while inspections were carried out. Trains in Tokyo were also temporarily halted and a football match in the city was briefly suspended.
There were no reported anomalies at any of the region's mothballed nuclear power plants.
Saturday's rattle was the second sizable shake Tokyo had this week, after a much less powerful, but far shallower, earthquake hit close to the capital on Monday.

On Friday, a volcano in the far south of Japan erupted, spewing a huge column of ash high into the sky and forcing authorities to evacuate the island on which it sits.

The eruption caused no injuries and no damage was reported, but it served as yet another reminder of the volatile geology of the country.
Japan sits at the meeting place of four tectonic plates and experiences around 20 per cent of the world's most powerful earthquakes every year.




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