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Saturday's tremor was aftershock of 2011 quake, say seismologists

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Hmmm, merely aftershocks ... is this good news or bad news?

But thanks to strict building codes, even powerful quakes that might wreak havoc in other countries frequently pass without causing much damage.

Is this really true? Around 80% of the homes in my neighborhood were constructed more than thirty years ago, when building codes were not so strict.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

@Tessa; pretty much so. RC buildings will sustain damage, sure, ever to the extent the building may need demolishing, but if you have seen the footage of the tsunami coming into the towns, villages and cities on the Tohoku coast, I can't say I saw one RC structure that had failed to the extent that it was pancaked, like you may find in many other countries in quake zones after major shakes and remember, this is one of the largest quakes in our --all be it short-- recorded history.

TEPCO: badly built storage tanks, an ad-hoc, dead-ending taped together 'cooling' and 'cleaning' system, AND in three years four months have only built a meter high breakwater; haven't moved the spent fuel rods off site, still have some fuel left to remove, and still, so it seems, has not learnt a goddamn thing.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

But thanks to strict building codes, even powerful quakes that might wreak havoc in other countries frequently pass without causing much damage.

Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said there were no reports of any abnormality early Saturday.

These two sentences following each other seem strange... Had the Fukushima Plant been constructed under STRICT BUILDING CODES we may not be in such a scary situation right now...

5 ( +6 / -1 )

FightingViking wrote; " Had the Fukushima Plant been constructed under STRICT BUILDING CODES we may not be in such a scary situation right now... " That is doubtful. As the actual cause of all the reactor failures was loss of cooling from the earthquake before the Tsunami.

Which is why there is contention about the other Japanese reactors. As Japan's other reactors are also are subject to seismically poor locations; ergo no building code on earth could protect a nuclear reactor from being built in seismically flawed locations.

These are highly sensitive critical systems. Any TEPCO assurances are mute as they are a maintenance and nuclear operator corporation. And certainly not nuclear designers and commissioning engineering specialists and never have been.

...

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Saturday's tremor was aftershock of 2011 quake, say seismologists

seismologists (plural?) article mentions comments by only one Japanese seismologist Yasuhiro Yashida. Anyway, 'Farmboy' has rightly said : how does it help to know that?

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

@Farm, aftershocks are usually labeled as such when a smaller earthquake occurs after a previous large earthquake on the same fault line, they happen as the crust around the malformed fault plane finds equilibrium from the effects of the main shock but personally, I am struggling to see this as such because of the modified Omori's law and Båth's Law, deterring it as an aftershock helps in discounting it as a foreshock, which preludes a larger, more destructive event.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

There are building codes in Japan:

http://japanpropertycentral.com/real-estate-faq/earthquake-building-codes-in-japan/

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I'm with Farmboy.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

But thanks to strict building codes, even powerful quakes that might wreak havoc in other countries frequently pass without causing much damage.

Too bad those "strict building codes" did not apply to nuclear plants, where they were stupid enough to have critical elements of the cooling system and emergency/back-up power generation below sea level.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

So, do we go with zichi's, or YongYang's theory?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

These Seismologists are only assuming this was an aftershock!

0 ( +1 / -0 )

@canadianbento

These Seismologists are only assuming this was an aftershock!

That's based on your Masters in Geology is it? phfft

There are ways to determine aftershocks vs new shock via the calculation of stress buildup/release on neighboring fault lines, or further down the original fault. You come across like an evolution or global warming denier :/

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Quote: "At least three were injured in the latest quake but there was no damage done to the crippled nuclear plant, officials said."

No, they would not have said that. They never say that. They always say "There have been no reports of damage so far."

Big difference. Even Tepco would not be so stupid as to commit themselves like that.

See Saturday Mainichi 福島原子力発電所などで地震による異常は報告されていない = nothing out of the ordinary has been reported.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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