Found! New tectonic plate under Tokyo

[Dover]

Found! New tectonic plate
Agençe France-Presse
Monday, 23 May 2005

A Japanese geologist says he has discovered a new tectonic plate under the Tokyo area, a finding that may force the government to review its quake preparation plans.

Japan has 20% of the world's powerful earthquakes as the country lies at the crossing of four tectonic plates: the Eurasian, North American, Philippine and Pacific plates.

If a quake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale were to hit the Tokyo region in the evening peak hour, it would kill 13,000 people and inflict US$1.1 trillion dollars in damage, according to a government estimate released earlier this year.

The geological structure of the Kanto region, which includes Tokyo, is complex with the interaction of the Philippine, Pacific and Eurasian plates...cont'd

http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1374495.htm

[ashmanonar]

1. in other news:

water is wet, and fire is hot!

:evilgrin:

[Wilms]

2. ~

[psychopomp]

3. Quite a few big rumblers in Japan in the last year

This won't soothe already rattled nerves!

/happily not in Kanto
//still in Japan though

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. You all remember the Kobe earthquake a few years back

When I was in that area in 1991, I asked a Buddhist monk in Kyoto, only about 60 miles from Kobe, how his temple, Kiyomizu-dera, which is built into the side of a mountain on stilts, had survived all the earthquakes since the 14th century.

He laughed and said that western Japan didn't get severe earthquakes. That was a problem only in the east and north.

Then, ten years, ago, Kobe was hit with the second biggest earthquake that Japan suffered in the twentieth century. It even caused minor damage to some temples in Kyoto.

Interestingly, geologists didn't even know that there was a fault under Kobe until the quake struck.