2024-01-03 09:28:26
Japan is racing against time to rescue survivors of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that struck the center of the country on January 1, 2024. A day after the powerful earthquake that activated the tsunami warning, authorities reported Tuesday that at least 50 people have died and reported enormous damage in the most affected areas, so it is feared that the death toll will continue to rise.
The city of Wajima, with 27,000 inhabitants and located very close to the epicenter of the earthquake, is one of the areas most affected by the earthquake, which caused the collapse of about 25 buildings, many of them private homes, the EFE agency reported.
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It is believed that people may be trapped under the remains of 14 of these buildings, according to the local fire department.
A woman observes a damaged home and vehicles after a strong earthquake in Tohi Town, on the Noto peninsula, Japan, this January 2, 2024. (EFE/FRANCK ROBICHON).
The earthquake mainly affected old houses, which are usually made of wood.
The epicenter of the powerful earthquake was Ishikawa prefecture, on the Noto Peninsula. On Tuesday, authorities confirmed that there are still smoking buildings there. They also reported fishing boats that were sunk or swept out to sea.
The epicenter of the earthquake. (AFP).
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said “extensive damage has been confirmed, including numerous casualties, collapsed buildings and fires.”
“We have to race against time to search and rescue the victims,” he added.
Footage taken by public broadcaster NHK on Tuesday morning showed a seven-story building collapsed and smoke rising in a central area of Wajima.
A seven-story building that collapsed in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on January 2, 2024, a day after a large 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck Japan. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP).
The earthquake caused a fire in Wajima that ended up affecting more than 200 structures.
The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said on Tuesday that 155 aftershocks have been recorded after the earthquake, mostly with magnitudes greater than 3.
As for the tsunami, waves 1.2 meters high hit Wajima and smaller ones were recorded in places such as the island of Hokkaido, in northern Japan. There were no significant effects due to this phenomenon.
There was also no impact on the country’s nuclear power plants, something that was initially feared taking into account the magnitude 9 earthquake that hit Fukushima on March 11, 2011.
Japan is one of the places where the most earthquakes are recorded in the world. It is also considered the country best prepared for the management of this type of natural disasters, where anti-seismic constructions and a citizenry that learned through prevention are the main keys to avoiding greater damage, both material and personal.
Why are there so many earthquakes in Japan?
According to him United States Geological Survey (USGS), all of Japan is in a very active seismic zone. In addition, it is the country where the most earthquakes are detected because the nation has the largest seismic network in the world, which means that they keep a precise record of these natural phenomena.
The seismic area where the country is located is called the Ring of Fire or Ring of Fire, which is located on the coasts of the Pacific Ocean and “is characterized by concentrating some of the most important subduction zones in the world, which causes intense activity. seismic and volcanic in the territory it covers”, according to a report by CNN.
The Ring of Fire comprises an area 40,000 kilometers long, where several oceanic plates are sliding beneath Asia, America and Oceania.
Around 81% of the largest earthquakes on the planet are recorded in all these areas.
Besides…
Territories covered by the Ring of Fire
- North America: It extends along the west coast of Mexico, the United States and Canada, continues to Alaska and joins Asia in the northern Pacific.
- Central America: It touches the territories of Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize.
- South America: It touches almost all of Chile and some parts of Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia.
- Asia: It covers the east coast of Russia and continues through other countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.
- Oceania: the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa and New Zealand.
National Geographic notes that the seismic and volcanic activity generated in the Ring of Fire is a potential danger for hundreds of millions of inhabitants of some 40 countries, including Peru.
“In the Pacific basin, volcanoes and earthquakes have been causing death and destruction for thousands of years, but today, due to enormous population growth in Asia and America, more and more people are living on the brink of disaster,” says National Geographic.
Why do so many earthquakes occur in Japan? The Geological Survey of the Asian country says that the nation is located along subduction zones, which causes “many earthquakes to occur each year,” CNN reports.
A subduction zone is one where two tectonic plates collide by moving in opposite directions. Of these two plates, the denser one passes beneath the less dense one (i.e., it subducts); This movement produces collisions between both plates and releases energy that translates, among other things, into earthquakes, according to the Mexican Geological Survey (SGM).
The reverse error. (AFP).
In the case of Japan, explains CNN, the densest plate is from the Pacific and passes under the less dense plate, which are the islands that make up Japanese territory.
“The Pacific Ocean plate is subducting or sinking beneath the islands of Japan. The force of the union of these two plates generates earthquakes throughout this area. Sometimes these tectonic plates can slide past each other quite calmly, generating only small tremors. But sometimes parts of that area become blocked. They do not slide together. Stress builds up at this boundary over time and is eventually released in a large earthquake and a rupture occurs,” said Dr. Liz Cottrella geologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, in a 2011 video explaining that year’s Fukushima earthquake.
Shoppers duck as an earthquake hits the Toyama region, Japan, on January 1, 2024. (Kyodo via REUTERS)
How does Japan prepare for earthquakes?
Throughout history, Japan has suffered devastating earthquakes from which lessons have been drawn for both personal prevention and stricter construction standards.
For example, on September 1, 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake of magnitude 8.2 destroyed Tokyo and other cities, leaving 140,000 dead. As a reminder of that disaster, Japan established September 1 as the official disaster prevention day.
In terms of personal preparation, as children the Japanese learn to protect their heads and place themselves under tables in the event of an earthquake, they carry out fire or tsunami drills, as well as observing which places in a building and their communities are safest to evacuate or take refuge. What is learned in childhood is replicated throughout the rest of life.
As explained in a report by BBC Mundonowadays each Japanese city usually advises residents about disasters, indicating what to do in emergency situations, where to take shelter and what to bring (a first aid kit prepared with first aid items, flashlight, water and non-perishable food, toilet paper , a change of clothes and, in times of pandemic, a mask and alcohol gel).
Inside their homes, the Japanese protect themselves from earthquakes by using low furniture, they do not hang pictures on their walls or large lamps and they prop up their shelves and televisions with supports, indicates the EFE agency.
A man stands in front of a damaged house in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, a day after a large 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s Noto region. (Photo by Fred Mery/AFPTV/AFP).
Regarding construction standards, a 1981 law marked a before and after in the country’s anti-seismic standards, which have been perfected in recent decades as earthquakes have shown that deficiencies may persist. Currently, experts consider that the country has the highest construction standards in the world, notes EFE.
The EFE agency explains that the 1981 law arose after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in the Miyagi prefecture, which left a thousand injured and twenty dead. After that earthquake, it was mandated for the first time that all new buildings, houses and infrastructure had to be built to withstand strong earthquakes.
The columns were forced to be reinforced, the walls were widened, and new materials and glass were invested, among other aspects.
After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, which destroyed old infrastructure, damaged 640,000 buildings and killed 6,434 people, a new law included subsidies to renovate old buildings.
As for tsunamis, protection walls have been built on the coast of Japan for decades. But after the 2011 tsunami in Fukushima these have been reinforced and their heights have even been increased.
EFE gives an example of the latter to the fishing community of Taro, located in Iwate, which since 1965 had the largest wall in the country, 10 meters high; but that wall could not prevent 181 people from dying and more than a thousand buildings from disappearing in the Fukushima tsunami. Today, there is a new 15 meter high wall.
Besides…
The worst earthquakes in Japan in the last 20 years
October 23, 2004.- 23 dead and more than 500 injured in a series of earthquakes, one of them magnitude 6.8, that they shook northwest Japan.
March 20, 2005.- An earthquake of magnitude 7 hits the island of Kyushu and causes one death and 735 injuries.
March 25, 2007.- An earthquake of magnitude 6.9 shakes a large coastal area of the province of Ishikawa and caused one death, 170 injuries and the collapse of 44 buildings.
16 julio 2007.- Eleven dead and more than a thousand injured in the earthquake magnitude 6.8 in the region of Niigata. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant was closed after a radioactive water leak.
June 14, 2008.- At least 13 dead, ten missing and 150 injured by an earthquake magnitude 7.2 in Sendai.
11 March 2011.- An earthquake of magnitude 9followed by a gigantic tsunami, caused 18,000 deaths (15,873 dead and 2,768 missing) and triggered a serious nuclear accident in Fukushimawhich forced 80,000 people to evacuate.
7 April 2011.- An earthquake of magnitude 7.1which caused a tsunami alert, left three dead, 132 injured, and caused fires and blackouts in one million homes.
11 April 2011.- An earthquake of magnitude 7with epicenter in the province of Fukushimacaused a tsunami warning and left four dead.
December 7, 2012.- An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 caused a tsunami of one meter that reached the coast of the municipality of Ishinomakiwithout causing fatalities, although nine were injured.
April 14 and 16, 2016.- Two earthquakes, magnitudes 6,5 y 7,3hit the Japanese island of Kyushuregistering fifty dead and more than a thousand injured.
April 20, 2016.- An earthquake of magnitude 5.6 hits northeastern Japan.
November 21, 2016.- A strong earthquake magnitude 7.4 shakes the prefecture Fukushima (northeast of Japan) and causes a tsunami warning.
June 18, 2018.- A powerful earthquake magnitude 6.1 shake Osakaleaving 5 dead and more than 350 injured.
September 6, 2018.- A strong earthquake magnitude 6.7 shake the island Hokkaido (north) and leaves about 44 dead.
March 16, 2022.- At least four people died and more than 200 were injured by the strong earthquake that shook Fukushimawith a magnitude of 7.4.
5 mayo 2023.- Two earthquakes magnitude 6.5 and 5.8 shake the prefecture Ishikawaleaving one dead and a dozen injured.
January 2, 2024.- The earthquake of magnitude 7.6 that hit the western coast of central Japan leaves at least 50 dead.
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