Japan issued tsunami warnings this morning after a powerful earthquake, preliminary magnitude of 8.1, hit the islands just north of Japan. Residents were being evacuated this morning to higher and safer grounds. Initially, Japan's Meteorological Agency thought that waves over 6 feet high would hit the northern and eastern parts of the country. So far only several waves about 16 inches high have moved onshore.According to Japan's Meteorological Agency, the earthquake hit around 6:15 am EST about 245 miles east on an island called Etorofu. Read more about the earthquake and tsunami in USA Today!
Unfortunately Japan is prone to earthquakes because it sits atop four tectonic plates.
2 comments:
My wife is from Japan. Lives in Sendai, near Tokyo. It is a coastal town and her parents said they did not notice anything out of the ordinary. They got lucky...
That's good! That was a pretty big earthquake, but it takes a certain quake to produce a tsunami. It all depends on the way the earthquake moves...whether the plates slip horizontal or vertical. The bad thing about earthquakes is we usually don't know the dynamics of the quake itself until it is studied. -ERIC
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