How the Quake Has Moved Japan

8/7/2019 How the Quake Has Moved Japan

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. How the quake has moved JapanBy Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News

Coastal areas has been transformed by the quake and tsunami

Japan's coastline may have shifted by as much as 4m (13ft) to the east following Friday's 8.9Magnitude earthquake, according to experts.

Data from the country's Geonet network of around 1,200 GPS monitoring stations suggest a largedisplacement following the massive quake.

Dr Roger Musson from the British Geological Survey (BGS) told BBC News the movementobserved following the quake was "in line with what you get when you have an earthquake this

big".

The quake probably shifted Earth on its axis by about 6.5 inches (16.5cm) and caused the planetto rotate somewhat faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 millionths of a second.

Japan's meteorological agency has proposed updating the magnitude of the earthquake to 9.0.

This would make it the joint fifth biggest quake since instrumental records began, but other

agencies have not yet followed suit.Japan lies on the infamous "Ring of Fire", the line of frequent quakes and volcanic eruptions thatencircles virtually the entire Pacific Rim.

The dense rock making up the Pacific Ocean's floor is being pulled down (subducted) underneathJapan as it moves westwards towards Eurasia.



Dr Brian Baptie, also from the BGS, explained that the quake occurred on the subduction zonealong two tectonic plates, the Pacific plate to the east and another plate to the west, which manygeologists regard as a continuation of the North American plate.

As the Pacific plate moves westwards underneath Japan, it drags the North American platedownwards and westwards with it.

As an earthquake occurs, the upper plate lurches upwards and eastwards, releasing strain built upas the two plates grind against one another.

In the most recent case, this movement gave a kick to the seabed, displacing a large amount of water and leading to the tsunami waves which devastated coastal areas in the Sendai region.

"The Pacific plate has moved a maximum of 20m westwards, but the amount of movement willvary even within the fault," said Dr Musson.

"That doesn't mean the whole country has shifted by that amount because the actualdisplacement will decay further from the fault."

Geonet is operated by Japan's Geographical Survey Institute (GSI). Work on the array began in1993, and it has now grown into the largest GPS network in the world, according to the GSI.

Its data show a movement eastwards of up to 4m in coastal areas of Japan.



Dr Ken Hudnut, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Pasadena, California,told MSNBC that information resources linking GPS readings to maps, such as driving directionsand property records, would have to be changed as a result of the shift.

"Their national network for property boundary definitions has been warped," he explained. "For

ships, the nautical charts will need revision due to changed water depths, too (of about 3ft).Much of the coastline dropped by a few feet, too, we gather."

Japan tsunami 'could be 1,000-year event'By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News

The death toll is notknown, but could run into the tens of thousands

Continue reading the main story

Tsunamis on the scale that hit north-east Japan last week may strike the region about once every1,000 years, a leading seismologist has said.

Dr Roger Musson said there were similarities between the last week's event and another giantwave that hit the Sendai coast in 869AD.

It is not unusual for undersea earthquakes to generate tsunamis in this part of Japan. Offshorequakes in the 19th and 20th centuries also caused large walls of water to hit this area of coastline.

But previous research by a Japanese team shows that in the 869 "Jogan" disaster, tsunami watersmoved some 4km inland, causing widespread flooding.

The researchers said that such gigantic tsunamis occur in the area roughly once every 1,000years. Dr Musson, who is the head of seismic hazard at the British Geological Survey (BGS),suggested the latest tsunami was comparable to the event in 869.

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Quake rule

The most recent tsunami waves were up to 10m high; it is unclear how far inland the waterstravelled, but reports say it was on the order of several miles.

Dr Musson told BBC News: "I would imagine it would be about the same, because it is hard tothink that there would be any larger earthquakes than this in this part of the world."

The tsunami hasdevastated coastal areas of north-east Japan

The BGS seismologist acknowledged there had been other notably large earthquakes in theregion in 1933 and in the 1890s. But he said: "There is a convenient little fact to remember... if you know how often Magnitude 9 earthquakes are, you will get Magnitude 8 earthquakesroughly 10 times as often and Magnitude 7 earthquakes approximately 100 times as often."

However, another researcher contacted by BBC News said they would be cautious to drawconclusions about the frequency of such events, given how seismically active this region is.

Far inland

About 10 years ago, a team led by Professor Koji Minoura, from Japan's Tohoku University,analysed sediments from the Sendai and Soma coastal plains that preserved traces of the tsunamiin 869.

Their results, published in the Journal of Natural Disaster Science, indicated that the medievaltsunami was probably triggered by a Magnitude 8.3 offshore quake and that waters spread morethan 4km from the shore.


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It can also be dangerous to plan on past events only - even in Japan where the record is long, itmight still not be long enough”

End Quote Hermann Fritz Georgia Tech

They also found evidence of two earlier tsunamis on the scale of the Jogan disaster, leading themto conclude that there had been three massive events in the last 3,000 years.

Dr Lisa McNeill, a geophysicist at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, told BBC News: "There are several ways you can find out about past events, before we began to recordearthquakes on seismometers in the 1900s - one is through historical records, the other way isthrough geological records.

"You can either look for evidence of tsunamis, or you can look for evidence that the ground hasmoved rapidly up or down due to the earthquake itself. That is what happens to the seafloor andgenerates the tsunamis. In some cases, underwater sediment flows can be triggered by the

earthquakes and these may leave a datable record which we can identify in sediment cores."

Dr McNeill said it can be difficult to estimate a precise magnitude from limited geological dataand historical records. But she said that - broadly speaking - there was a good correlation

between the size of an earthquake and the size of a tsunami.

Planning ahead

She explained: "That usually works reasonably well, but there are some deviations. Some of them are due to local effects at the coastline: either the shape of the coastline - which can focusand increase the amplitude of tsunami waves - and the local bathymetry (seafloor relief).

US scientists estimated the progression of the tsunami over the entire Pacific basin

"There can sometimes be additional effects that deform the seafloor such as undersea landslidesor other faults that moved at the same time, which affect how the seafloor deforms."



Professor Hermann Fritz, a tsunami expert from Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech),US, said: "Nowhere in the world is as prepared as Japan - but in general you can plan for amagnitude 7 or 7.5 that happens every generation, but not for anything in the 9 range.

"The relationship [between earthquake size and tsunami size] is not linear, and it depends on

how the rupture actually occurs. If the rupture is actually on the seafloor you get a much bigger displacement - then again if you get something like 7.2 somewhere deep in the Earth, that won'tcreate a tsunami at all.

"Once it's a full megathrust rupture, Magnitude 9, then basically the entire zone ruptures fromdeep down up to the surface.

He added: "Each event is going to be different, and it can also be dangerous to plan on pastevents only - even in Japan where the record is long, it might still not be long enough."

Work resumes at Japanese reactorBy Chris Hogg BBC News, Tokyo

Many survivors of the horrific doubledisaster to hit Japan have shown orderliness and patience

Four days after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, a local newspaper in Sendai - the cityclosest to the quake's epicentre - reported there had been 40 incidents of theft and looting sincethe disaster.

When you think of the tsunami-devastated conditions, that number is pretty low. Many shopswere left unattended. There was an almost total blackout, but there was hardly any crimereported.

There were shortages of essential supplies, but people in the city would queue calmly for up totwo hours at a time rather than taking from the empty shops.

Machiko Konno, who works in the municipal office in Sendai, puts this down to the gentlenature of the Tohoku people in that part of Japan, whose main industries are farming andfisheries and for whom "endurance" is part of their character.



"Psychologically we had a common sense of not wanting any more confusion or panic, or anyfurther peril, so we all helped keep public order," she says.

There were traffic jams after the quake in Sendai as everyone tried to get home, or get out of thecity, but Ms Konno says there was no-one honking their horn, or trying to cut in: they were co-

operating.Anxiety

That is the approach people in the city have taken ever since the disaster.

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If there is panic, the situation will become more frightening”

End Quote Machiko Konno Sendai municipal worker

"Shortage of petrol is a major problem but otherwise our life has not changed much," she says.

But when pressed she admits that below the surface people are feeling more anxiety than theyshow to others.

"The queues at stores show that people are uneasy," she says. "They are trying not to say it outloud, because everyone is afraid that if someone vocalises their fear or anxiety, people aroundthem will start to panic.

"That's the biggest fear they have, because if there is panic, the situation will become morefrightening and public order could be disrupted."

In Japan the idea that you need to be considerate and defer to the interests of the group isinstilled in you from a very early age.

But people are traumatised, and not just those in the worst-affected areas.

"In Japan people smile with their face and cry inside," says Professor Jeff Kingston from TempleUniversity in Tokyo.

Independent spirit

They had always been told their country was the best prepared in the world to deal with naturaldisasters.

Now some are realising that even if that was true, the government could not protect them.

“Start Quote



It is a moment of great trial for the country. But we have to overcome it”

End Quote Yoshifusa Momma Company director

That said, there doesn't seem to be as much criticism of the government as you might expect.

The evacuees - crammed into rescue centres where there are shortages of everything from foodand water to decent sanitation - are exhibiting the stoicism for which the Japanese are famous.

"The government is mobilising as fast as it can be expected to amid a complex catastrophe," saysProf Kingston. "The challenges are immense, unprecedented and in my view the Herculeanefforts of the government deserve more praise than its critics allow."

Machiko Konno agrees. "It is understandable to some extent that the authorities can't operatesmoothly after this sort of big incident," she says.

She believes that rather than criticising the government people in her area are fighting to changethe situation they find themselves in, co-operating, not depending on anyone else but themselves.

And that spirit is shared by people outside the worst-affected areas too. In Tokyo, at the Shibuyacrossing, one of the most instantly recognisable spots in the city for a foreign tourist, a group of students are collecting money for the earthquake victims.

Fukushima - disaster ordistraction?

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News



The government's swift imposition of a protection zone may have kept any healthimpact down

As it was almost bound to do at some point, Japan's nuclear safety agency has uprated itsassessment of the Fukushima power station incident from a level four to a level five.

These are categories on the International Nuclear and Radiological Events Scale (INES), whichruns from zero (nothing happened, essentially) to seven, a "major accident".

So far, Chernobyl is the only seven-rated incident in nuclear history.

Level five is defined as an "accident with wider consequences".

So what is the worst-case scenario for those "wider consequences" at Fukushima?

What clues are there either from that level five rating, or from the situation on the ground, as tohow things might transpire - whether it will in the end prove to have been a disaster or adistraction from the serious and widespread impact of the tsunami?

"The worst-case scenario would be where you have the fission products in stored canisters or inthe reactors being released," said Professor Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics andclinical engineering at Royal Berkshire Hospital, UK.

"Radiation levels would then be very high around the plant, which is not to say they'd reach thegeneral public.

"And we're definitely not in the situation where we're going to see another Chernobyl - that possibility has long gone."



Distant advice

The level five rating applies specifically to the nuclear reactors in buildings 2 and 3 atFukushima, rather than to the spent fuel cooling ponds that have lost water and where the storedfuel is heating up.

That implies that the regulators believe the main source of radioactivity coming from the planthas been the reactors.

World's worst nuclear incidents• Level 7: Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1986 - explosion and fire in operational reactor,

fallout over thousands of square kilometres, possible 4,000 cancer cases• Level 6: Kyshtym, Russia, 1957 - explosion in waste tank leading to hundreds

of cancer cases, contamination over hundreds of square kilometres• Level 5: Windscale, UK, 1957 - fire in operating reactor, release of

contamination in local area, possible 240 cancer cases• Level 5: Three Mile Island, US, 1979 - instrument fault leading to large-scale

meltdown, severe damage to reactor core• Level 5: Fukushima, 2011 - tsunami and possibly earthquake damage from

seismic activity beyond plant design, leading to...?

• Timeline: nuclear accidents

Certainly, one of the the spikes in readings earlier in the week appeared to co-incide withdamage to reactor number 2, believed to be a crack in the containment system - the symptoms

being a sharp release of steam and an abrupt drop in pressure.

On Thursday and Friday, radiation levels around the plant appeared much more stable.

And although elevated readings have been noted in some locations 30km from Fukushima, therehas been nothing outside the 30km protection zone that has appeared to pose a danger to health.

Despite this, a number of governments have advised their citizens to stay much further away - or in the case of the UK, to consider doing so.

However, when the UK's chief scientific adviser explained the reasoning to BBC News onThursday, he was still painting a worst-case scenario that appeared some way short of apocalyptic.

"The worst-case scenario would see the ponds starting to emit serious amounts of radiation, withsome of the reactors going into a meltdown phase," he said.

"We put that together with [a possible scenario of] extremely unfavourable weather conditions -wind in the direction of Tokyo, for example.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5165736.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5165736.stm



"Even in that situation, the radiation that we believe could come into the Tokyo area is such thatyou could mitigate it with relatively straightforward measures, for example staying indoors andkeeping the windows closed."

Local issue

Fukushima now becomes the third level five incident in half a century of nuclear technology.

The Windscale fire could have been far worse if filters had not been installed at thetops of the chimneys

The first was the Windscale reactor fire in the UK in 1957 - the second, the partial meltdown of areactor at Three Mile Island in the US in 1979.

Richard Wakeford from the Dalton Nuclear Institute, a visiting professor in epidemiology at theUniversity of Manchester, recently re-assessed the effect of radiation released at Windscale.

Using data and computer models, his scientific paper concluded that the release could havecaused about 240 cases of cancer, half of them fatal.

However, inquiries into Three Mile Island concluded it probably caused no deaths.

That raises the question of why both are in the same INES category, given that Three Mile Islanddid not, in the end, have more than a local impact.

"The reason why Three Mile Island was rated a five is that there was major damage to the reactor core and there was potential for a widespread release of radioactive material - it didn't happen,

but that potential is built into the event scale," said Professor Wakeford.



In terms of material released, he said: "Fukushima is somewhere between the two - clearly therehave been releases, and you have a possible breach of the containment system - no-one reallyknows."

Slow down

“Start Quote

I can't see any chance of picking out the effect of the Fukushima releases against the general background of cancers”

End Quote Richard Wakeford Dalton Nuclear Institute

As time passes, the reactors should in principle become less dangerous.

The rate at which they pump out heat decreases quickly, and by now the rate should be down toabout one-thousandth of what it was a week ago, just before the Tohoku earthquake triggered ashutdown.

Prospects of exposure to perhaps the most dangerous radioactive substance, iodine-131, alsodiminish rapidly.

It decays quickly through radioactivity - after eight days, half the atoms present initially willalready have decayed away.

There should be very little left in fuel rods that have been in storage ponds since November.

In addition, the continuing efforts to keep seawater flowing into reactors 1, 2 and 3 appear tohave been relatively successful on Thursday and Friday.

If the reactors have been cooled, fuel rods will have been degrading at a slower rate, againcurbing the release of radioactive substances.

On Friday afternoon, radioactivity readings had reportedly declined to less than 500microsieverts per hour on site - below the level at which operators have to sound the alarm.



Some governments have advised their nationals to keep well away

Nevertheless, computer simulations by the French Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) indicate that harmful levels of radioactivity could have been experienced close toFukushima but outside the 30km protection zone - though not further afield.

Greenpeace, with a long history of opposition to nuclear power, is not convinced that the timehas come to declare that the risk of a major accident has subsided.

The group's nuclear campaigner Jan Beranek outlined a scenario where radioactive material was

dispersed through fires or gas explosions of the type we saw earlier in the week.

"The mechanism could be destruction of the cladding around the fuel rods and fire - leading notonly to the relase of radioactive iodine and caesium, but also opening fuel rods to the air," he toldBBC News.

"With the fuel ponds, there is no barrier to further release.

"With the reactors, you could have a steam or hydrogen explosion if they try to pour water tooquickly, and another explosion could give the final blow to the containment."

Hooking up

The cure for the plant's immediate problems could be the restoration of electrical power.

A grid connection was hooked up on Friday, although technicians were clearly struggling to power up systems around the site given that some of the plant's internal circuitry had beendamaged by the tsunami or the gas explosions.



The nuclear safety authority outlined a timescale that would see power restored in reactor buildings 1-4 by Sunday.

If this all works, the prospects of the Greenpeace scenario should recede.

Then it will be time to take stock. And it may turn out, said Richard Wakeford, that no deaths atall will be attributable to the Fukushima incident.

"If you take one of the workers who's been exposed to 100 milliSieverts (mSv), that's not goingto have any serious short-term effects," he said - "certainly nothing like the situation facing theChernobyl emergency workers that killed 28 of them.

"The risk of a serious cancer arising from that kind of dose would be less than 1% in a lifetime -and you have to consider that the normal chance of dying from cancer is 20-25% anyway.

"As for people outside the plant - I can't see any chance of picking out the effect of the

Fukushima releases against the general background of cancers." Younger Japanese are also pitching in to the relief effort

"Japan is quite a small country, so people tend to feel their neighbour's moment of need is alsotheir moment of need," says Ai Ono.

Younger Japanese are often criticised by older generations for not understanding the values of "endurance" and "stoicism" that got Japan through the horrors of World War II, and for notexhibiting the traits that are valued in Japan.

But in Shibuya, the opposite is in evidence.

"I've always taken it for granted that people come together in times of need," says Ko Ito, ayoung "freeter" - or part-time worker.

He says that by saving electricity, not panic-buying in Tokyo, they can help those in the worst-affected areas.

"I think human beings survive because they help each other."

Yoshifusa Momma, a company director who is a little older, believes this crisis has changed

Japan.

"It is a moment of great trial for the country," he says. "But we have to overcome it, whatever happens."

Again it is the stalwart exterior that is on show, but you have to wonder how much uncertaintythere is behind the mask. As a foreigner in Japan, that is a question you'll almost never get ananswer to.



Japan nuclear alert at Fukushima - Q&A

There have been a number of explosions and fires at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plantin Japan, following Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

Four of the plant's six reactors have been in trouble. How great a danger do these problems posefor people in Japan and further afield?

Has there been a leakage of radioactive material?

Yes. Harmful levels of radiation have caused at least one temporary evacuation of staff at the power plant. Higher than normal, but harmless, levels of radiation have been registered in Tokyo,140 miles (220km) away.

How much radioactive material has been released?

The World Health Organization's representative in China says there is no evidence of anysignificant international spread of radiation.

What type of radioactive material has escaped?

There are reports of radioactive isotopes of caesium and iodine in the vicinity of the plant.Experts say it would be natural for radioactive isotopes of nitrogen and argon to have escaped aswell. There is no evidence that any uranium or plutonium has escaped.

What harm do these radioactive materials cause?

Radioactive iodine could be harmful to young people living near the plant. After the 1986Chernobyl nuclear disaster there were some cases of thyroid cancer as a result. However, peoplewho are promptly issued with iodine tablets ought to be safe. Radioactive caesium accumulatesin soft tissue, while plutonium accumulates in the bone and liver. Radioactive nitrogen decayswithin seconds of its release, and argon poses no threat to health.

Q&A: Health effects of radiation

How did the radioactive materials escape?

In at least two ways. Some is known to have escaped as a result of steam and gas released from

overheating reactors. There has also been a release from the fourth reactor's fuel storage pond,which was damaged in an explosion, and caught fire.

Surprise 'critical' warning raises nuclear fears

Could radioactive materials have escaped by any other means?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12722435

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12722435

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608



The authorities have pumped seawater into three reactors. This water is likely to have beencontaminated by its passage through the reactor, but it is currently unclear whether any of it has

been released into the environment.

How long will any contamination last?

Radioactive iodine decays quite quickly. Most will have disappeared within a month.Radioactive caesium does not last long in the body - most has gone within a year. However, itlingers in the environment and can continue to present a problem for many years.

Has there been a meltdown?

The term "meltdown" is used in a variety of ways. Some of the metal encasing fuel rods have been damaged by heat, and may have partially melted (a "fuel-rod meltdown"). However, there isas yet no indication that the uranium fuel itself has melted. Still less is there any indication of a"China Syndrome" where the fuel melts, gathers below the reactor and resumes a chain reaction,

that enables it to melt everything in its way, and bore a path deep into the earth. If there were to be a serious meltdown, the Japanese reactor is supposed to be able to handle it, preventing theChina Syndrome from taking place.

Could there be a Chernobyl-like disaster?

Experts say this is highly unlikely. The chain reaction at all Fukushima reactors has ceased. Theexplosions that have occurred have mostly taken place outside the steel and concretecontainment vessels enclosing the reactors. At Chernobyl an explosion exposed the core of thereactor to the air, and a fire raged for days sending its contents in a plume up into theatmosphere. At Fukushima the explosions have damaged mainly the roof and walls erected

around the containment vessels - though it is feared the steel and concrete containment vessel of reactor number two has been damaged. Even if a reactor at Fukushima were to explode -according to the UK government's chief scientific adviser - it would send radioactive materialonly 500m into the air (rather than 9,000m) and the fallout would be concentrated within 20kmor 30km of the site.

Could there be a nuclear explosion?

The explosions so far have been caused by hydrogen released from the reactors. At Chernobylthere may have been a nuclear explosion in the reactor, but this has not been confirmed.

What caused the hydrogen release from the reactor?

At high temperatures, steam can separate into hydrogen and oxygen in the presence of zirconium, the metal used for encasing the reactor fuel. This mixture is highly explosive.

How do iodine tablets work?



If the body has all the iodine it needs, it will not absorb further iodine. The tablets fill the bodyup with non-radioactive iodine, which prevent it absorbing radioactive iodine from contaminatedmilk, or other food sources.

What kind of radiation levels have been recorded at Fukushima?

Levels as high as 400 millisieverts per hour have been registered at the plant itself. A couple of hours exposed to this dose-level could cause radiation sickness. However, for long periods sincethe crisis began, the level has been at 10 millisieverts per hour or lower. (A spinal X-ray deliversroughly one millisievert of radiation, a CT scan of the abdomen and pelvis has an effective doseof 15 millisieverts.) On Monday morning the level was as low as 0.02 millisieverts per hour -only a few times more intense than the level of radiation experienced on a passenger jet flying at40,000 feet.

Is any level of exposure to radiation safe?

In some parts of the world, natural background radiation is significantly higher than others - for example in Cornwall, in south-west England. And yet people live in Cornwall, and many othersgladly visit the area. Similarly, every international air flight exposes passengers to higher thannormal levels of radiation - and yet people still fly, and cabin crews spend large amounts of timeexposed to this radiation. Patients in hospitals regularly undergo X-rays. Scientists disputewhether any level of exposure to radiation is entirely safe, but exposure to some level of radiation - whether at normal background levels or higher - is a fact of life.

Work resumes at Japanese reactorBy Richard Black and Jonathan Amos BBC News



Scientists are trying to establish if the Magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake has altered the chancesof a major tremor under Tokyo - or increased the risk of another tremor powerful enough togenerate a tsunami.

The massive Sumatra quake in 2004 was followed by many others above Magnitude 7.0,

including two above Magnitude 8.0 in 2005 and 2007.

Some generated tsunamis that claimed more than 100 lives; and it is thought they occurred because the original earthquake, on 26 December, increased stresses along the tectonic plate boundary that lies to the west of Sumatra and Java.

So what is the outlook for Japan now, especially for the great city of Tokyo and the Kanto plainon which it sits?

This is home to one-quarter of Japan's population, as well as being the country's administrativeand commercial centre.

Big quakes struck the area in 1703, 1855 and 1923, with the last claiming the lives of 100,000 people.

Were any one of these events to occur today, the economic losses alone would be expected to top$1 trillion (80 trillion Yen).

Tokyo is the administrative and commercial heart of Japan.

Seismic activity has definitely increased since the M 9.0 event, with the incidence of smallearthquakes registered in some parts of Japan, hundreds of kilometres from the source,increasing by a factor of 10.

Hazard assessment in the region is therefore a pressing priority for researchers; but it is far fromeasy.

"The Kanto region is very complex, and the size of quakes triggered there is probably going to be limited by that complexity," says Chris Goldfinger from Oregon State University in the US,who works in collaboration with Japanese researchers.

"But given the proximity to Tokyo, even a limited quake there would be damaging."



Kanto sits very close to a tectonic triple junction - a point where vast slabs of the Earth's surfacegrind past each other.

The tectonic plate making up the Pacific Ocean floor is moving westwards under Japan towardsEurasia.

The Pacific plate is being pulled down (subducted) underneath Japan; and crowding in on thiscollision is the Philippine Plate, further south, also trying to get under Japan.

Ross Stein from the US Geological Survey (USGS) is one of a US/Japanese team that hasmodelled the region around the triple junction to help gauge future risks.

They used seismic signals from 300,000 tremors of various sizes to build a three-dimensionalview of what was going on deep in the Earth, much like a doctor might use X-ray tomography toscan tumours in the brain.

They found a 25km-thick fragment broken off one of the plates that they now believe plays asignificant role in shaping seismic activity in the Kanto region - and by implication, the outlook for Tokyo.

"When it comes to Tokyo, things get immensely complicated," said Dr Stein.

"There seems to be broken pieces of plate that are jammed under Tokyo like a pill that won't godown your throat. And on top of that we have the two different slabs of plates beneath it, sothere's really a triple stack of faults beneath Tokyo."

To make matters more complicated, there is some disagreement among researchers about the

most important geological factors around Tokyo, with some pointing to the Sagami Trough (asubduction zone leading off the triple junction) as the likely cause of big earthquakes, and othersciting Dr Stein's "pill", known as the Kanto Fragment.

On-going calculations

The USGS team has tried to work out the probabilities of repeat quakes like those in 1703, 1855and 1923.

http://sicarius.wr.usgs.gov/fragment/download.html

http://sicarius.wr.usgs.gov/fragment/download.html



The Magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake is one of the biggest in recorded history

Prior to the Tohoku, the group figured Tokyo had a 30% chance in the next 30 years of experiencing an event (M 7.0-plus) that produces the sort of severe shaking which would testeven the walls and pillars of highly earthquake-resistant buildings.

The question now facing the group is whether this assessment needs to be revised following theM 9.0 Tohoku tremor and its aftershocks - the biggest of which, very close to Tokyo, registeredM 7.9 just 30 minutes after the big one.

"We're hard at work making just the calculation you suggest," Dr Stein told the BBC.

"We calculate that there are modest increases in stress on some of the faults that lie just to the

south of Tokyo.

"So our judgement would be that the hazard is either unchanged or higher than it was beforehand."

But Dr Stein stresses that far more work needs to be done.

http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/reports/reprints/Stein_PRSLA_364.pdf

http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/reports/reprints/Stein_PRSLA_364.pdf



Compared with the situation in Sumatra, researchers are at least fortunate that there is anabundance of data available from seismic monitoring stations on land and at sea. The region iswell-studied and well-modelled.

As Dr Stein puts it: "We are drinking from a fire-hose of data about earthquake occurrence."

However, surprises do occur. Chris Goldfinger says the size of the Tohoku quake was itself areminder that understanding of subduction zones is incomplete.

"[The Tohoku zone] had been written off as a really great seismic source," he told BBC News.

"It was well known to put out quakes at M 8.3-8.4 quakes, but on the seismic hazard maps it waslightly treated - all the hazard was thought to be on the Nankai Trough [on the boundary of theEurasian and Philippine plates].

"But it surprised everyone; and that's why I no longer write off faults unless they're proven

dead."'Outer-rise'

The USGS modelling also suggests an increase in earthquake risk in northern Honshu, in theSanriku region.



Scientists have access to a huge amount of data

It also shows stresses increasing to the east of the Japan Trench.

Here, the Pacific Plate is distorted into a ridge as it approaches the subduction zone down whichis must eventually travel.

Parts of these ridges can collapse suddenly in what are known as "outer rise" events, which cangenerate a tsunami.

The Kuril Islands to the north of Japan saw an outer rise earthquake in 2007 - which reached M8.1, and generated a tsunami.

The biggest concern, however, is Tokyo.

One curiosity is that Japanese researchers are currently very reluctant to talk on the issue.

Scientists we contacted - in one case, someone known to one of us for years - did not want to goon record.



Given the devastation caused by the tsunami and the fact that an event near Tokyo could do evenmore damage, the reluctance to talk is eminently understandable.

It can, however, be interpreted as a signal of real concern.

When the models are complete and peer-reviewed - and Dr Stein's is not the only one inexistence - we should have a clearer view of the situation.

In the meantime, all we can be sure of, he says, is that the 30% risk he calculated four years agohas certainly not gone down.

Japan earthquake: Foreign evacuations increase

France has assigned two government planes to fly its nationals away from Japan

As concern grows over Japan's stricken nuclear power plant, several countries are boostingefforts to evacuate their nationals from the area.

The US has told its nationals to stay 50 miles (80km) away from Fukushima and has charteredflights for those wanting to flee the country.

France and China are evacuating thousands, while the UK and Australia have advised people toleave Tokyo.

Japan has imposed a 12-mile exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant.

Workers are battling to cool overheating fuel after a series of explosions led to fears largeamounts of radiation could be released into the atmosphere.

On Friday Japan upgraded the incident from four to five on a seven-point international scale for nuclear accidents.

'Uncertainty'



On Wednesday, the UK Foreign Office said that any Britons living in or north of Tokyo should"consider leaving", but officials have stressed there is no immediate risk to health.

It advised Britons to use commercial flights, but it has also chartered planes to fly from Tokyo toHong Kong, with free places for those directly affected by the disaster.


Foreign evacuations• US - providing flights for people who wish to leave, advising 50-mile exclusion

zone around Fukushima• France - urging people to leave northern Japan and Tokyo, sending

government planes to fly French out• UK - advising nationals to leave north-east and Tokyo, chartering flights out• China - bringing thousands to Niigata for evacuation•

Australia - people with non-essential roles to leave Japan• US to help citizens leave Japan

The US State Department has also laid on flights for citizens wishing to leave Japan and hasauthorised the departure of some 600 dependents of diplomatic and commercial staff in Japan.

The White House said its advice to US nationals to stay 50 miles from Fukushima did not implya lack of confidence in the Japanese warnings.

Spokesman Jay Carney said the steps were "what we would do if this incident were happening in

the United States".

As he advised Australians to leave Japan, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said the main concernwas over problems caused by the extensive damage to infrastructure.

"We have uncertainty of power supply, we have problems with train services, we have problemswith public transport services, many schools have closed and there is this repeated series of aftershocks," he said.

The two largest groups of foreign residents in Japan are South Koreans and Chinese.

China says it has evacuated more than 6,000 of its nationals from quake-hit areas, mostly to Niigata on Japan's west coast, and is laying on six to eight additional flights to bring them home.

South Korea has said it will mobilise military ships and aircraft to evacuate its citizens if thesituation worsens. At the moment it has told its nationals to stay 50 miles away from the plant.

Most other countries have also advised their nationals to evacuate from the north-eastern regionof Japan or to leave the country altogether if they can.

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Room shortage

Many of those who have left have flown into Hong Kong. Several hotels there also reported block bookings from foreign companies keen to temporarily relocate staff outside Japan.

Lilian Lui, the Kowloon Shangri-La's director of sales and marketing, said March was peak season for the hotel industry and there were not many rooms available.

"(I'm) not sure if hotels can accommodate all travellers from Japan if there is a huge influx," shetold AFP news agency.

The official death toll from Friday's magnitude 9 quake and the tsunami which followed it hasnow rising to 6,405, with another 10,200 still missing. About 380,000 people are currently still intemporary shelters.

Japan radiation fears prompt firms to move employees

Airlines have cancelled and rerouted dozens of flights


Foreign firms are evacuating staff from Japan, after fears of radiation leaks at the FukushimaDaiichi plant escalated further.

German car maker BMW and car part maker Continental are among companies movingemployees out of the country.

Others, including software group SAP, are moving staff to southern cities within Japan.

Workers had temporarily suspended operations at the nuclear plant after a rise in radiation levels.

Radiation levels in Tokyo were higher than normal, officials said, but not at levels dangerous tohumans.

The expatriate staff of international banks, including Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and StandardChartered, have reportedly left the capital city.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12756054#story_continues_1




However, the Japan-based International Bankers Association said that none of its members hadordered its employees to evacuate, and some financial firms were continuing "business as usual".

Move offered


“Start Quote

I was very scared and people are beginning to panic”

End Quote Miyuki Yoshimoto Japanese housewife

• Japan shares rebound after slump• BOJ adds another $43bn to markets

Although predominately staffed by Japanese employees, expatriates typically make up a large part of the management at the Tokyo offices of foreign financial firms.

Companies are moving to ensure the safety of their staff after an explosion and fire broke out atthe Fukushima Daiichi power plant, about 220km north of the capital.

SAP said it would evacuate offices in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. It said it had offered about1,100 employees and their families transport and hotel rooms further south.

Private equity firm Blackstone is closing its office in Tokyo and relocating staff as well,according to the Bloomberg news agency.

A spokesperson for chipmaker Infineon said: "We've offered to move staff to the south but onlya small amount have decided to go."

Flight disruptions


Case study

Goro Hokari works for an advertising agency in Tokyo.

"We are very, very nervous about the nuclear problem. My wife is working for a Germancompany and it has decided to... move its headquarters [from Tokyo] to Singapore.

We are not sure if we can trust the Japanese government. We are not sure what we should do[whether we should leave].


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12755374









Last night my company decided all employees should work from home, so at the moment wedon't need to go to the office.

It is just in case. If my company asks us to work at the office, the company could be blamed or have some responsibility. This is to avoid that situation.

We have been stocking up on some things. The [local] shops have run out of batteries and rice isalmost out of stock. We have some supplies of rice at home so at the moment it is not a problem.

Many airlines operating through Tokyo have been affected, with dozens of flights to Japan haltedor rerouted.

Deutsche Lufthansa said it was diverting flights away from Tokyo to Osaka and Nagoya, whileAir China cancelled flights to the Japanese capital from Beijing and Shanghai.

At Hong Kong's international airport, many passengers arriving from Tokyo said they were

relieved to have left.

Cindy Khemalaap and her husband had been due to relocate to Hong Kong from Tokyo later thismonth, but decided to bring forward the move because of their fears about radiation andworsening food and fuel shortages.

The US citizens had been living in Tokyo for five years, and they had to leave their dog behind.

"We just took what was necessary. My husband will have to go back at some point and sort outthe rest of our belongings," she said.

"We didn't sleep all last night. There were more aftershocks."

Japanese housewife Miyuki Yoshimoto shed tears when was greeted by her husband, who worksin Hong Kong. She was taking a trip home to Tokyo with her five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son when the quake struck.

"I was very scared," she said. "And people are beginning to panic."

But other arrivals from Japan stressed that businesses were operating normally in parts of thecountry less affected the earthquake.

Martin Barrow, a London based businessman who was in Osaka when the earthquake struck,said he had managed to attend all his meetings in the country and was in Hong Kong asscheduled to complete his trip.

Work resumes at Japanese reactorBy Richard Warry BBC News



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Prof Malcolm Sperrin, a medical physicist, on the Japan quake health risks


Related Stories• Q&A: Fukushima radiation alert

The Japanese authorities are battling to try to minimise the release of radiation from the stricken

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.Radiation levels have fallen back from a high on Tuesday, but there is no guarantee that they willnot begin to rise again, as the plant is far from stable.

A 20km (12 mile) evacuation zone has been imposed around the plant, and residents livingwithin 30km (18 miles) have been advised to leave the area, or to stay indoors, and try to maketheir homes airtight.

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Experts have stressed that swift action should be able to minimise any impact on human health.

What are the immediate health effects of exposure to radiation?

Exposure to moderate levels of radiation - above one gray (the standard measure of absorbed

radiation) - can result in radiation sickness, which produces a range of symptoms.

Nausea and vomiting often begin within hours of exposure, followed by diarrhoea, headachesand fever.

After the first round of symptoms, there may be a brief period with no apparent illness, but thismay be followed within weeks by new, more serious symptoms.

At higher levels of radiation, all of these symptoms may be immediately apparent, along withwidespread - and potentially fatal - damage to internal organs.

Exposure to a radiation dose of four gray will typically kill about half of all healthy adults.

For comparison, radiation therapy for cancer typically involves several doses of between one andseven gray at a time - but these doses are highly controlled, and usually specifically targeted atsmall areas of the body.

A sievert is essentially equivalent to a gray, but tends to be used to measure lower levels of radiation, and for assessing long-term risk, rather than the short-term acute impact of exposure.There are 1,000 millisieverts in a sievert.

Danger

levelRadiation dose Effect

Source: World Nuclear Association

2 millisieverts per year (mSv/yr)

Typical background radiation experienced by everyone (average1.5 mSv in Australia, 3 mSv in North America)

9 mSv/yr Exposure by airline crew flying New York-Tokyo polar route

20 mSv/yr Current limit (averaged) for nuclear industry employees

50 mSv/yr Former routine limit for nuclear industry employees. It is also thedose rate which arises from natural background levels in several

places in Iran, India and Europe



Dangerlevel

Radiation dose Effect

100 mSv/yr Lowest level at which any increase in cancer is clearly evident.

350 mSv/lifetime Criterion for relocating people after Chernobyl accident

400 mSv/hr The level recorded at the Japanese nuclear site, 15 March

1,000 mSv singledose

Causes (temporary) radiation sickness such as nausea and

decreased white blood cell count, but not death. Above this,severity of illness increases with dose

5,000 mSv singledose Would kill about half those receiving it within a month

How is radiation sickness treated?

The first thing to do is to try to minimise further contamination by removing clothes and shoes,and gently washing the skin with soap and water.

Drugs are available that increase white blood-cell production to counter any damage that mayhave occurred to the bone marrow, and to reduce the risk of further infections due to immune-system damage.

There are also specific drugs that can help to reduce the damage to internal organs caused byradioactive particles.

How does radiation have an impact on health?

Radioactive materials that decay spontaneously produce ionising radiation, which has the

capacity to cause significant damage to the body's internal chemistry, breaking the chemical bonds between the atoms and molecules that make up our tissues.

The body responds by trying to repair this damage, but sometimes it is too severe or widespreadto make repair possible. There is also a danger of mistakes in the natural repair process.

Regions of the body that are most vulnerable to radiation damage include the cells lining theintestine and stomach, and the blood-cell producing cells in the bone marrow.



The extent of the damage caused is dependent on how long people are exposed to radiation, andat what level.

Radiation and cancer• Most experts agree even small doses of ionising radiation - as low as 100

millisieverts - can increase the risk of cancer, but by a very small amount.• In general, the risk of cancer increases as the dose of radiation increases.

Exposure to one sievert of radiation is estimated to increase the lifetime riskof fatal cancer by around 5%.

• The thyroid gland and bone marrow are particularly sensitive to ionisingradiation.

• Leukemia, a type of cancer that arises in the bone marrow, is the mostcommon radiation-induced cancer. Leukemias may appear as early as a fewyears after radiation exposure.

• Other cancer can also result from exposure to radiation, but may not developfor at least a decade. These include cancers of the lung, skin, thyroid, breastand stomach.

What are the most likely long-term health effects?

Cancer is the biggest long-term risk. Usually when the body's cells reach their "sell-by date" theycommit suicide. Cancer results when cells lose this ability, and effectively become immortal,continuing to divide and divide in an uncontrolled fashion.

The body has various processes for ensuring that cells do not become cancerous, and for replacing damaged tissue.

But the damage caused by exposure to radiation can completely disrupt these control processes,making it much more likely that cancer will result.

Failure to properly repair the damage caused by radiation can also result in changes - or mutations - to the body's genetic material, which are not only associated with cancer, but mayalso be potentially passed down to offspring, leading to deformities in future generations. Thesecan include smaller head or brain size, poorly formed eyes, slow growth and severe learningdifficulties.

Are children at greater risk?

Potentially yes. Because they are growing more rapidly, more cells are dividing, and so the potential for things to go wrong is greater.

Following the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in the Ukraine in 1986, the World HealthOrganization recorded a dramatic increase in thyroid cancer among children in the vicinity.

This was because the radioactive materials released during the accident contained high levels of radioactive iodine, a material that accumulates in the thyroid.



What risk does Fukushima pose currently?

The Japanese authorities have recorded a radiation level of up 400 millisieverts per hour at thenuclear plant itself.

Professor Richard Wakeford, an expert in radiation exposure at the University of Manchester,said exposure to a dose of 400 millisieverts was unlikely to cause radiation sickness - that wouldrequire a dose of around twice that level (one sievert/one gray).

However, it could start to depress the production of blood cells in the bone marrow, and waslikely to raise the lifetime risk of fatal cancer by 2-4%. Typically, a Japanese person has alifetime risk of fatal cancer of 20-25%.

A dose of 400 millisieverts is equivalent to the dose from 50 -100 CT scans.

Prof Wakeford stressed only emergency workers at the plant were at risk of exposure to such a

dose - but it was likely that they would only be exposed for short periods of time to minimisetheir risk.

He suggested the upper limit of their exposure would be 250 millisieverts - around 12 times thenormal permitted annual exposure limit in the workplace.

However, even a dose of 100 millisieverts over a year is enough to raise the risk of cancer, and adose of 250 millisieverts could raise lifetime risk by around 1%.

The level of exposure for the general population, even those living close to the plant, wasunlikely to be anywhere near as high. There should be no risk to people living further afield.

What if the situation deteriorates?

If there were to be a meltdown or a fire at the nuclear plant, and unfavourable winds, thenexperts say radioactive material could reach as far as Toyko, 150 miles (241km) away.

However, even in that situation, the level of radiation is likely to be such that simple measures,such as staying indoors with windows closed, should neutralise the risk.

How can the Japanese authorities minimise the cost to human health?

Prof Wakeford said that provided the Japanese authorities acted quickly, most of the general population should be spared significant health problems.

He said in those circumstances the only people likely to be at risk of serious health effects werenuclear workers at the plant or emergency workers exposed to high levels of radiation.



He said the top priority would be to evacuate people from the area and to make sure they did noteat contaminated food. The biggest risk was that radioactive iodine could get into their system,raising the risk of thyroid cancer.

To counter that risk, people - in particular children - could be given tablets containing stable

iodine which would prevent the body absorbing the radioactive version.

The Japanese already have a lot of iodine in their natural diet, so that should help too.

Is there evidence that food has been contaminated?

Yes. Japan's health ministry has urged some residents near the plant to stop drinking drinking tapwater after samples showed elevated levels of radioactive iodine - about three times the normallevel.

Raised radiation levels have also been found in samples of milk and spinach, in some cases well

outside the 20km exclusion zone.

However, there is no suggestion that these levels of radiation pose any immediate threat tohuman health.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano, said the level of radioactivity found in the spinachwould, if consumed for a year, equal the radiation received in a single CAT scan. For the milk,the figure would be much less.

Professor Wakeford stressed that safe limits for radiation in food were kept extremely low, so people should not necessarily be unduly worried by reports that they had been breached.

How does Fukushima compare to Chernobyl?

Professor Gerry Thomas, who has studied the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, said: "It isvery unlikely that this will turn into anything that resembles Chernobyl.

"In Chernobyl you had a steam explosion which exposed the reactor core, which meant you hada lot of radiation shooting up into the atmosphere."

Prof Thomas said although the Chernobyl disaster had led to a rise in thyroid cancer cases, theonly people affected were those living in the areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia that lie closest

to the site of the Chernobyl Power Plant, and who were young at the time



Exposed rods spark meltdown fear

In Tokyo, Tepco officials formally apologised for the Fukushima incident


The fuel rod exposure at Fukushima Daiichi number 2 reactor is potentially the most serious

event so far at the plant.

A local government official confirmed the fuel rods were at one point largely, if not totallyexposed; but we do not know for how long.

Without coolant around the rods, temperatures can rise to levels hot enough to melt metalliccomponents over a prolonged period.

This opens the possibility of a serious meltdown - where molten, highly radioactive materialfrom the reactor core falls through the floor of the containment vessel and into the groundunderneath.

However, engineers appear to have restored some water flow into the reactor vessel and if theyare successful, temperatures will begin to fall again rapidly.

What the incident illustrates is the ad-hoc nature of the operation being mounted at Fukushima.

An official with the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the site, said seawater was being pumped in both by fire engines and via the system installed to extinguish fires in the

power station's turbine hall.


“Start Quote

Meltdown wouldn't be a good scenario, but much better it does that than explodes”

End Quote Paddy Regan Surrey University







He told BBC News that the use of this methodology had never been foreseen - it had beeninvented by the team on the ground at Fukushima.

Even the mere use of seawater in this way is an extraordinary step to take.

According to the main Japanese news agency Kyodo, the rods were exposed when the flow of seawater into reactor number 2 stopped simply because a fire pump ran out of fuel.

With the entire region of Honshu island reportedly low on fuel and other vital supplies, a keyquestion is whether plans are in place to keep the power station supplied with diesel.

Core issue

With reactor 2, what is not yet known is how long the rods were exposed to the air, and whattemperatures were reached.

In the absence of cooling, temperatures in the core could rise up to 2,000C (3,600F), said PaddyRegan, professor of nuclear physics at the UK's University of Surrey - hot enough to melt thezirconium cladding that surrounds the fuel rods.

In addition, the zirconium reacts at these temperatures with water molecules to form hydrogen.

This makes the cladding more brittle and likely to fall away from the rods.

The fuel itself - being in the form of ceramic pellets - should not directly melt, although thehotter it gets the more likely it is that steam can leach out radioactive substances from the pellets.

A nightmare scenario for any nuclear plant is a total meltdown - where the molten core collapsesin the bottom of the steel containment vessel and heats it so much that it falls through.



This possibility was highlighted by the 1979 incident at Three Mile Island in the US - anddramatised in the contemporary movie The China Syndrome.

The steel containment vessel, though, is designed to withstand temperatures substantially higher than 2,000C - so is meltdown a realistic possibility?

"It is possible," Professor Regan told BBC News.

"It didn't happen at Three Mile Island, though.

"If it did happen, it would still be localised; it wouldn't be a good scenario, but much better itdoes that than explodes."

The key issue for technicians in the plant now is to get enough water into the reactor to bring thetemperature down again.

Further releases of mildly radioactive steam from the containment vessel are likely, because thehot core will vaporise much of the water that is injected.

Releasing the steam is also the main way to take heat out of the vessel.

Tepco is reportedly considering making holes in the roof of the reactor 2 building so hydrogenreleased with the steam will not collect and lead to a third explosion.

Multiple failures

The chain of failures illustrates the capacity of events such as this massive earthquake and

tsunami to overwhelm systems that are designed to be "redundant" - to have more than onemeans of doing the same thing.



Displaced residents of the Fukushima area were taken to evacuation centres

The earthquake caused Fukushima Daiichi and other power stations to shut down - taking awaythe electricity driving the reactors' cooling systems.

Back-up was supposed to come from diesel generators.

They cut in - but then cut out again after about an hour, probably due to being overwhelmed bywater from the tsunami, although Tepco has not confirmed this.

The diesels themselves were backed up further by batteries, but these were designed to functiononly for eight hours.

When they ran out, nothing else was available.

Reports say that five fire pumps were then deployed to provide water, but that the explosions in buildings 1 and 3 knocked four of them out of action.

Meanwhile, devastation from the tsunami as well as the fear of aftershocks means simply drivingnew pumps or fuel to the site is much more difficult than it would be under normalcircumstances.



All this is already providing material for anti-nuclear groups to argue that no nuclear facility can be designed to be completely safe.

This is manifestly correct; but the same is true for any industrial operation.

Supporters of nuclear power will point to the fact that so far casualties number just a few, thatengineers have so far - however desperately - been able to confine the problem, and that far fewer people die each year from nuclear accidents than in coal-mining.

Japan: A fragile country at the mercy of natureBy Hugh LevinsonBBC News

Burning houses have been swept out to sea following the disaster

The world is reacting with shock at the huge quake and tsunami that has devastated Japan,but people there have learnt to expect natural disasters.

The first indication was a humming and a rattling.

Hundreds of upturned beer glasses on wooden shelves, shook from side to side, then knockedinto each other. Conversation dimmed then stopped completely. Faces looked from one toanother across the plates of tempura and sushi.

"Quick," shouted the barman, "turn off the gas."



It was my first experience of a tremor, just a few days after I had gone to live in Japan. And itwas typical - everyone trying to gauge just how serious this quake was going to be.

When should we get up and try to run outdoors? Or would we have to dive under the tables? Or seek safety under a door frame - which we all knew was the

strongest part of the room?

After a few seconds the tremor subsided, the conversation picked up, the sushi chef started wielding his heavy knife onthe chopping block.

Just a few seconds later, a white subtitle appeared on the TV in the corner - it was on all channels- indicating the size of the quake and the location of the epicentre.

It was not the "big one". But everyone knew that one was coming.

The question was: when?

Tradition held that animals and fish would act strangely ahead of a quake - carp, for example,would jump out of the water.

The Japanese government even sponsored an experiment to monitor carp activity to see if theycould be used to predict tremors.

Japanese people live with an ever-present expectation of natural disaster - floods, hurricanes,fires, and most of all earthquakes and the massive waves they can generate.

Hell on earth?

It is no coincidence that tsunami is a Japanese word.

The native religion, Shinto, is animist - speaking of the divine nature of trees and mountains, of goddesses who emerged from deep clefts in the rocks. The very earth can seem alive.

The islands sit on a massive fault line and the classic imageof the country is the perfect volcanic cone of Mount Fuji.

Boiling hot water steams up from cracks in the rocks,

exploited for the natural hot springs that are one of thecountry's great wonders.

In the town of Beppu you can see pools of foul-smellingsulphuric waters that emerge from the earth. But the big drawis the dark red pool guarded by statues of ferocious, boggle-eyed deities. It is called Jigoku - Hell.

It is no coincidence thattsunami is a Japaneseword

Schoolchildren stillcommemorate the victims of the Kanto earthquake



All Japanese know that at any time the powers of the earth can turn against them.

In 1923, the great Kanto earthquake devastated Tokyo.

Fires raged across a city built of wooden houses, killing an estimated 140,000 people.

Since then the population on the Kanto plain has grown massively in an interconnected series of cities from the mountains down to the sea.

Everyone knows that the pressure between the tectonic plates deep underground will be releasedsometime.

Everyone prepares. Schools and office workers take part in earthquake drills. And these aredramatic.

The authorities bring along a mock-up of a living room, complete with a sofa and a dining table,

with one wall missing so you can see inside.

The whole room is mounted on a machine on a truck and gently the mechanism rocks the roomfrom side to side - simulating the usual tremors that you feel every few days.

Curtains sway and plates slide across tables.

The movement gets stronger and stronger, wilder and wilder. Crockery smashes, the furniture ishurled about furiously.

Just watching, you can feel the panic rising in your stomach. And this is just a mock-up of a

moderate quake.

Extraordinary resilience

An ever-present sense of disaster is deeply woven into traditional ways.

Japanese culture has long-prized fragility, impermanence, transience.

The cherry blossom is the most prized of all expressions of nature because it achieves such a brief perfection beforefalling carelessly.

Samurai - so it was said - gave up their lives with similar carelessness, because their honour was more important.

Zen teaching praised the way bamboo's flexibility gave it aspecial strength.

Subjected to force it sways and bends. It does not snap. The earthquake has causedextensive damage to homesand roads



The Japanese traditionally built their houses lightly out of wood and it is said this is so theywould sway in an earthquake rather than simply collapse.

The city of Tokyo has shown extraordinary resilience.

In March 1945, a couple of decades after the great earthquake, American B29s droppedincendiary bombs on the city of wooden houses.

The resulting firestorm killed 100,000 people in the course of a single night.

Waiting for the "big one" is a part of Japanese life and the carp, it turns out, are no help. Theyhave no better idea of when a tremor will strike than the rest of us.

Japan earthquake: International teams in rescue effort

Click on this image to zoom into the picture.


Reset

International rescue teams have been helping search for survivors in the coastal city of Ofunatoin Iwate prefecture (above).

The BBC's Gavin Lee is with the British team in Ofunato.

The city was one of the closest to the epicentre of the earthquake and was also hit by the tsunami.

Our correspondent reported seeing ships on top of houses and hundreds of vehicles, including aschool bus, in piles of debris.





INTERNATIONAL HELP

The British rescue team has been sent to Ofunato along with teams from the US and China.

It is made up of 59 fire service search and rescue specialists, two rescue dogs and a medicalsupport team of four.

Rescuing people after a tsunami is particularly difficult because buildings in which people may be trapped are damaged by the wave coming in and going out and also by being hit by debrissuch as vehicles and other houses.

Gavin Lee says that particular damage has been caused by wood from a timber yard crashing into buildings.

DOG TEAMS

The first job for the rescuers is to divide the area that they are searching into a grid and thensystematically search the area with sniffer dogs.

The dogs help to narrow down the search by identifying buildings in which there may besurvivors or bodies.

This particular dog is from a US search and rescue team, which is usually based in Virginia.

LISTENING EQUIPMENT



Once they have narrowed their search, the teams use listening equipment and heat imagingdevices to help them locate any survivors in the rubble.

This team preparing its equipment is from China.

Some of the lower-lying areas of the city have been flattened, but it is hoped that the manyhigher buildings that have remained standing will yield some survivors.

The British team has brought 11 tonnes of equipment, including devices for heavy lifting andcutting.

BIG JOB

Gavin Lee says that the rescue teams described Ofunato as being the biggest job they had seen.

The volunteers travel at very short notice to natural disasters around the world.

While there have been some people rescued alive elsewhere in Japan, so far in Ofunato theBritish team has only recovered bodies.

Japan seeks new options on rare earthsBy Roland Buerk BBC News, Tokyo



Scientists like Dr Kazuhiro Hono are working to reduce Japan's reliance on rareearths


Sitting at a desk in his central Tokyo office, Shigeo Nakamura taps the book he wrote five years

ago, Rare Metal Panic.

"I saw this coming," he says.

His company, Advanced Materials Japan, specialises in importing rare earth minerals.

China has a near monopoly on supply and for a long time Mr Nakamura has been worried abouta squeeze on shipments.

It got worse after Japan's coastguard arrested a Chinese trawler captain near contested islands inthe East China Sea in September, triggering a territorial dispute.

"Probably, my company is in first place for the turnover of rare earths," he says. "But at thismoment, actually, we couldn't get the raw material for the last month."

And that is a big problem for Japan in sectors ranging from car manufacturing to electronics production.

Many high technology products cannot be made without rare earths, and Japan is relying on themto drive future economic growth.

"It will affect all of Japanese industry. Digital electronics material, TV sets, air conditioners.

Even digital cameras use a lot of rare earths. So almost everything," Mr Nakamura says.

China denies any embargo is in place, but the race is on in Japan to reduce its dependence.

'So urgent'

One option is diversifying supply. Rare earths are not actually that rare, it is just that extractingand processing them is messy, so the job has been left to China.





Discarded products provide another source of rare earths

Japan has already held talks with Vietnam over mining rights, but establishing new facilities or reopening old ones will take time.

Science could provide quicker results. At the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) inTsukuba they are using lasers to shave the surface of advanced magnets, vital for electric motors,atom by atom.

The aim is to develop new manufacturing methods that consume less rare earths.

"When we proposed this project we thought potentially it was important, but we never thoughtthis problem would become so urgent," says Dr Kazuhiro Hono, bending over the machine, atangle of stainless steel pressurised cylinders and wires.

"We have been working in the area for seven years and no one paid attention to our activity. Butnow so many people come to us asking how we can reduce the rare earth element. We feel theatmosphere has changed all of a sudden."

Recycling option

Japan may be poor in natural resources, but valuable metals and minerals are abundant in itscities - in old computers, mobile phones and electronics. Some have called extracting them urbanmining.

Toshikazu Yako specialises in recycling cars. His scrap yard is little bigger than two tenniscourts, but it is full of half-dismantled vehicles and piles of their guts - springs, engine blocksand tyres.



He sells components containing rare earths to specialist companies.

"Japan was one of the first countries to invest a lot in recycling, for example steel," he says,sipping coffee from a can, surrounded by shelves lined with old car headlights.

"We recycle 90% of the products into something else. So we do quite a bit. Rare earths are evenscarcer as a metal. People might aim for 100% recycling, but I am sure there will be losses.Eighty to 90% is realistic, I think."

At his trading house, Shigeo Nakamura has confidence in Japanese ingenuity. Japan survived theoil crisis of the 1970s, he says. It can get through this.

"Because of this disaster new invention will come, or new substitution," he says. "In the shortterm I worry, of course. But in the coming year or two new inventions will be started, I believe."

Documents

How the Quake Has Moved Japan