36 hours after a USGS magnitude 6.6 earthquake, and several 5+ quakes, China’s Sichuan Province has been hit with two more magnitude 5+ quakes. Rescue efforts have revealed more than 186 people killed, 3000 injured and 40000 homeless!
Chinese media reporting more than 1700 aftershocks!
Yesterday I reported seven magnitude 6+ earthquakes for April 2013. Today a 6.1 quake hit the Izu Islands, near Japan. That makes eight big quakes for the month so far. During April 2012 there were ten big quakes, we still have a little more than a week and a half left for this April.
Also today, islands along the Aleutian Chain off Alaska got hit with a 5.7 quake.
For the end of Gregorian year 2012 Japan reported 3,134 “noticeable” earthquakes. That’s about 1,000 more than the yearly average (from 2001 to 2010).
The Japan Meteorological Agency says 60% of the quakes are considered aftershocks of the 11 March 2011 disasters. Of course, 2011 was the year Japan experienced the most noticeable quakes, with 10,000 being reported!
It looks like 2013 is starting out big. From 01 January to 03 January 2013, Japan has already had 12 earthquakes, of magnitude 4+. For the same three day period in 2012 there were five quakes.
Japan has its own earthquake rating system, different from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Tohoku University Professor, Toru Matsuzawa, says the biggest earthquake we should expect is magnitude 10. This is based on the Earth’s size and known faults (which have been increasing).
Last year japan suffered a magnitude 9 quake. In 1960 Chile got hit by a magnitude 9.5 quake. A magnitude 10 earthquake will be 32 times more powerful than a magnitude 9!
He says he is only warning people so they can prepare for the worst case scenario, after all, the people of Japan had always been told by officials that the strongest quake they could expect was magnitude 8, with three meter high tsunamis, and look what happened on 11 March 2011.
Recently I saw a emergency preparedness public service announcement (PSA) on TV, it was specifically warning about a major earthquake, using the 1989 Loma Prieta (San Francisco bay area) earthquake as an example.
The latest Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) PSA is part of a new series called The Day Before. Past PSAs were more general in their warnings, why would FEMA now issue a PSA so specific?
Several reports have come out this year, from federal Department of Homeland Security agencies, as well as state agencies, which discuss major earthquakes and tsunamis, including the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. They also reveal a concern about how such things are predicted. As a result many state and local governments (from Virginia to California) have been asked to better prepare for another similar quake.
A July 2012 report by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, called Spectral Damping Scaling Factors for Shallow Crustal Earthquakes in Active Tectonic Regions, basically says that current ground motion measurement formulas used to predict earthquakes are not accurate, specifically when it comes to shallow quakes (California has a lot of those, on a weekly basis). Of course they’ve recommended a new formula.
In June 2012, a TsuInfo Alert (Tsunami Information Alert) was presented by Washington State Department of Natural Resources. It concerns the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which affects the North American west coast from northern California up to British Columbia.
The report quotes one scientist who has concerns about how PSAs should be used to prepare the public: “There is no one flyer, no one commercial that’s going to reach all of these audiences. They all have to be engaged individually, and they have to be approached with something that shows what’s in it for them.”-John Schelling, Washington State Emergency Management Division
The June TsuInfo Alert was packed with warnings about the underestimated effects that earthquakes have in generating tsunamis, not just on the west coast of North America, but including Hawaii and the Gulf of Mexico. The overriding advice for the public is, as one official from New Zealand was quoted: “….don’t wait around, head for higher ground!”-Fred Mecoy, Emergency Preparedness
Manager, Wellington
Officials from the U.S. state of Oregon suggested three basic rules for surviving after a major earthquake/tsunami: “…one can survive three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food.”
Don’t forget hypothermia (part of the “shelter” rule), especially if your dragged out to sea. Many of the tsunami deaths in the March 2011 disasters in Japan were the result of hypothermia, not drowning!
In February I predicted 2012 would be a busy year for earthquakes, specifically around the Pacific Ring of Fire. I count the number of 6.5 magnitude+ quakes, reported by the U.S. Geological Survey as Significant Earthquakes, and so far for 2012 there’ve been plenty.
I count at least 31 6.5+ quakes from 01 January 2012 to 05 September 2012, all of them around the Pacific Ring of Fire!
I counted 13 Significant Earthquakes between 5 and 6.4 magnitude, all around the Pacific Ring of Fire (including some tectonic plates directly in contact with Pacific Ring plates).
When compared to 2011, 31 6.5+ quakes doesn’t seem out of the norm. I counted about 34 such quakes for 2011 (on the USGS Significant list). But remember, 2011 was the year of the great disasters in Japan. Seven of those are quakes and/or aftershocks of the 11 March 2011 Great East Japan disasters (and I only counted up till 05 September).
For Significant quakes between 5 and 6.4 magnitude, I counted only four.
For 2011 there was a total of 38 Significant Earthquakes, from 01 January to 05 September. For 2012 there have been a total of 44 Significant Earthquakes, six more than 2011 during the same time period.
So, while the number of 6.5+ quakes for 2012 are slightly lower than 2011, the number of quakes between 5 and 6.4 are higher (USGS does state that their lists are to be considered “incomplete”). The Gregorian/Western/Christian calender year of 2012 isn’t over, yet.
27 August 2012, Tokyo Electric power Company (TEPCo) officials announced they need more storage tanks for contaminated water coming from the nuclear reactors.
Since the 11 March 2011 disaster began almost 220,000 tons of contaminated water has been stored, and the GE designed disaster reactors are putting out 400 tons per day! TEPCo says it’ll run out of storage tanks in three months.
A new order for more tanks will provide TEPCo with storage only until November 2013. The problem now is no space for more storage tanks, unless nearby forests are felled.
So where is all the water coming from? Ever since the 11 March 2011 disaster began it was noticed that more water is coming out compared to water being pumped in.
TEPCo officials now say it is groundwater flooding into the basements of the reactors through cracks in the basement walls. Cracks probably caused by the 9.0 earthquake, not the tsunami.
10 July 2012, operators of the Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi Prefecture announced that their Reactor 3 fuel rod storage pool is damaged.
Tohoku Electric Power Company (not to be confused with Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs Fukushima Daiichi) reported they discovered chips, cracks, and more than 12 missing pieces to the metal containers holding fuel rods in the pool.
They are now checking reactors 1 & 2 at the Onagawa nuclear power factory. Government officials are concerned that the damage was caused by the March 2011 earthquake.
“The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future…Numbers we can’t even wrap our heads around.”-David Stuart, University of Texas
Researchers from several universities have studied the most recent find of an ancient Mayan calendar, and concluded there is no “end of days” for 2012.
The calender was part of a mural painted on the wall of an ancient Mayan house. The house was unearthed in Guatemala in 2010. The archaeologists who uncovered the house (led by researchers from Boston University) said the wall calender reminded them of someone working out mathematical formulas on a makerboard (“whiteboard”).
Researchers did the math and realized that the Mayan wall calender (which could be at least 1,200 years old) projected astronomical observations well past the feared December 2012 date.
What is significant is that it appears that the Mayans who made the wall calender were dealing with mathematical formulas that are beyond today’s understanding!
