Huge aftershock rattles nerves in Japan

News from The Australian

Huge aftershock rattles nerves in Japan

Rick Wallace, Tokyo correspondent
From: The Australian
April 09, 2011 12:00AM

A MAJOR new quake has claimed four lives in Japan but has had no effect on delicate operations to cool the cripple Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, just 100km from the epicentre.

The quake knocked out power to 4 million homes and dealt another blow to the psyche of stressed residents of quake-and tsunami-ravaged northern Honshu.

At the Onagawa nuclear power plant, close to the epicentre of the quake, water sloshed out of spent fuel rod pools. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the spills were minor and did not lead to elevated radiation readings. Still, the incident reinforced the vulnerability of Japan's nuclear power system to strong earthquakes.

Several other nuclear facilities in northern Honshu were forced to switch to back-up power.

A tsunami warning forced the brief evacuation of workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Operator TEPCO continued to inject nitrogen into the No 1 reactor and maintained efforts to cool the cores of all the reactors.

The quake shook buildings in much of northern Honshu and sent furniture and light fittings crashing to the floor, as well as sparking several fires.

The Japan Meterological Agency said the quake - of a magnitude between 7.1 and 7.4 - was an aftershock linked to the March 11 megaquake. The epicentres were both off the east coast near Sendai.

The warning of a tsunami of between 0.5m and 1m along the northern Honshu coast was revoked a few hours later.

The official death toll from the original March 11 earthquake and tsunami reached 12,731 yesterday, with 14,706 people missing.

Tokyo University earthquake expert Satoko Ohki said aftershocks could follow for up to 20 years from a major quake, although they tended to diminish in size and frequency with time.

Associate Professor Ohki told The Weekend Australian Japan needed to be prepared for a quake of up to magnitude-8 for as long as a year after the March 11 megaquake.

She said aftershocks usually occurred near the epicentre of the main shock, although the focus of new shocks could be anywhere along the northern Honshu coast from Ibaraki to Iwate prefecture.

In the first official glimpse of the impact of the disaster on economic sentiment, Japan's cabinet office released data yesterday showing its "economy watchers" survey fell a record 20 points.

The index, compiled from interviews with taxi drivers, hotel and restaurant staff, showed their confidence about economic conditions dropped from 48.4 before the quake to just 27.7.

However, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 stock index rose more than 1.8 per cent as it emerged the aftershock had not sparked another tsunami or nuclear crisis.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said there were some "early signs of recovery" at Fukushima, although the situation remained "very serious".

Another nuclear supervisory agency, the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation, reported that its network of monitoring stations showed that minute traces of radioactive emissions from the Fukushima Daiichi plant had spread across the northern hemisphere within two weeks of the crisis.

SOURCE

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Let's continue to pray for Japan...