Japan says 70 percent chance of a new major earthquake by Wednesday
With Japan struggling to recover from an enormous earthquake that struck off its northeastern coast on Friday afternoon, experts say there is a significant chance that a major aftershock can strike within the next few days.
The initial 9.0-magnitude earthquake at 2.46 p.m. local time (0546 GMT) was centered about 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of Sendai in Japan, on the nation's main island of Honshu. It struck about 24.4 kilometers (15.2 miles) deep, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
On Sunday, JMA said that based on the occurrence of aftershocks so far, there is a 70 percent chance that an aftershock of 7.0 on greater will hit by 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday. After Wednesday morning, the chance of such an earthquake happening will be about 50 percent until 10 a.m. local time on Saturday.
"Tsunami may occur after a strong aftershock. Be cautious when a tsunami warning or advisory is issued," the seismological agency said in a statement. "The area is so large that, when compared to past cases, the activity of aftershocks is very high."
Japan has been rocked by dozens of strong aftershocks since Friday afternoon, but only one of them exceeded magnitude 7.0. The 9.0 monster quake unleashed a huge tsunami, devastating local coastlines and killing more than 1,000 people. Fears are the death toll will exceed 10,000.
Monster aftershock could strike within days
NORTH-EASTERN Japan can expect another monster earthquake large enough to trigger a tsunami within days, the head of the Australian Seismological Centre says.
The director, Kevin McCue, said there had been more than 100 smaller quakes since Friday, but a larger aftershock was likely.
''Normally they happen within days,'' he said. ''The rule of thumb is that you would expect the main aftershock to be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, so you would be expecting a 7.9.
''That's a monster again in its own right that is capable of producing a tsunami and more damage.''
Experts: Mega-quake, tsunami could happen here
"Brian Atwater, who's a specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey, has looked back into the geologic record and seen evidence that, on the 26th of January, at 9 p.m., in the year 1700, there was an earthquake that generated a tsunami ... offshore Oregon ... that was actually historically recorded in Japan," McNutt said. "It was the same magnitude as this event. It happened then. It could happen again."
The time frame of such disasters, though, "can be very hard to predict," James Gaherty, seismologist and Lamont associate research professor at Columbia University, pointed out to Jarvis, "because they do vary.
The geologic record clearly shows that they vary over time, so putting a precise number on it is very difficult. But you can look at the relative rates of the motion across these kinds of large faults, and try to make an estimate of how much time it will take to accumulate the kind of stress that's going to produce a big earthquake like this.
What parts of the U.S. are most susceptible?
"The most obvious place," Gaherty replied, "is the Pacific Northwest, the coast of Washington and Oregon.
Remember this story from a couple of days ago?
March Mega Quake Warning Issued For United States
A new report released today in the Kremlin prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Institute of Physics of the Earth, in Moscow, is warning that the America’s are in danger of suffering a mega-quake of catastrophic proportions during the next fortnight (14 days) with a specific emphasis being placed on the United States, Mexico, Central America and South American west coast regions along with the New Madrid Fault Zone region.
Raising the concerns of a mega-quake occurring, this report says, are the increasing subtle electromagnetic signals that are being detected in the Earth’s upper atmosphere over many regions of the World, with the most intense being over the US Western coastal and Midwest regions.
Important to note are that Russian and British scientists are at the forefront of predicting earthquakes based on these subtle electromagnetic signals and have joined in an effort to put satellites in space to detect more
This is where the story turns, and becomes more interesting and more ominous:
Most ominous in this report, though, is its warning that the fault-riddled State of California may be about to suffer its most catastrophic earthquake in decades as new reports for this region show the mass death of millions of fish [photo] is now occurring, and just like the mass stranding of whales on New Zealand beaches days prior to the February 22nd destruction of Christchurch.
This serves as a lead in to this story. Could these events be connected, and foretelling of what is to come?
LA mystery as millions of fish float belly up in Harbor
The pictures are amazing.
Some speculated about the apocalypse but fishermen and harbour chiefs are puzzled after millions of dead sardines were found floating in a marina just south of Los Angeles on Tuesday.
"It looks like what happens to goldfish when you don't change the water in the tank, mouth open and belly up," local official Bill Workman said, cited by the Los Angeles Times newspaper.
California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan told Reuters: "Essentially Basin 1 of Redondo Beach Harbour is full of dead sardines floating on the water, probably 5 per cent of the total basin harbour is filled with sardines that are dead."
And this:
Millions of fish dead in harbour
Because a similar phenomenon occurred in New Zealand days prior to their massive earthquake - this becomes something worth watching closely.
Over and beyond the possibility that this could foretell another earthquake, the mystery of millions of unexplained fish and bird death continues.
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