A series of violent earthquakes in the Niigata region, left 14 dead and 700 injured in northeastern Japan, in Ojiya town of 40,000 inhabitants, to be completely isolated and without electricity and in addition, five people were yesterday buried in the rubble of a collapsed building. The rescue crews had hoped to rescue them alive and some 42,000 people were evacuated and housed in schools in other public buildings, while the succession of aftershocks continued overnight, saw thousands of people remain in the open.
The strongest earthquake to hit 6.8 degrees on the Richter scale at 17.56 local time and in the next two hours, three strong earthquakes took place in the province of Niigata, 250 kilometers northwest of Tokyo, along with a dozen aftershocks that triggered panic in the population.
The largest earthquake in the history of Japan would have moved the main island of about 2.4 meters to the west, revealed by satellite images taken by NASA before and after the tragedy, and the calculations of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) seen on a map of the Geospatial Information Authority (GSI) in Japan, which shows the pattern of change over a large area and is consistent with the change of the land mass was revealed by the USGS geophysicist Kenneth Hudnut, and also added seismologist Paul Earle, "I think that 2.4 meters is a significant number" . The U.S. space agency (NASA) released two images that illustrate the movement of Japan, the photographs were taken by a spectroradiometer satellite image of Terra and both images show the eastern coast of Japan and especially the region of Sendai, the epicenter of the human tragedy the earthquake, with the difference that one was taken on February 26 and the second, EL16 March.
The earthquake and tectonic movement are the result of "failures of adjustment" along the border between the Pacific plate and North America, according to the USGS, the Pacific plate which fits about 83 mm per year but a major earthquake can move the plates considerably with catastrophic consequences.
"With an earthquake so large, it can generate huge changes," said Earle , recalling that similar movements occurred in Chile and Indonesia during the devastating earthquakes that were both countries.
The earthquake Japan, 9 degrees on the Richter scale, may also have shifted 10 cm axis of rotation of the Earth, considered as a preliminary study of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy (INGV).
For his part, Richard Gross of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA, said that after the earthquake, the Earth's axis would have moved about 15 inches, double that during the earthquake in Chile in 2010.
This movement, imperceptible to humans, also have had an effect on day length. According to my calculations, "said the researcher, the day length was shortened by 1.8 millionths of a second, a time when we must add the 1.2 millionths of seconds that were lost after the earthquake that hit Chile last year.
When the Nazca plate slipped under the South American plate and moved toward the Earth's axis, the rotation of the Earth suffered a small acceleration. Likewise, the 2004 earthquake in Sumatra also redistributed the mass of the planet, causing an acceleration in its rate of rotation (day then shortened 6.8 millionths of a second).
The shock and grief took over Japan within hours of the devastating earthquake of 8.9 degrees on the Richter scale that struck the island and triggered a tsunami with waves of 10 m, making more than a thousand dead and missing and left with cars, houses, boats and cause many wildfires that forced to declare state of emergency in China.
The agency Kyodo reported that some fires occurred in Nagaoka, a city of 200,000 inhabitants, adding that some 278,000 people were without electricity and some areas suffered the interruption of telephone communications. Journalists
public broadcaster NHK reported that Ojiya was cut off completely, because the road leading to the site sank 20 meters and "Nobody knows what happened in the village" said.
The Shinkansen high speed train derailed as a result of strong earthquakes, local sources said. The train was traveling from Tokyo to Niigata Prefecture and the railway company ordered a halt to all high speed trains in the area.
The eastern coastal provinces of Ibaraki, Tochigi, Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima are most affected and the damage caused to homes exceed $ 20,000 million, says the company. Air Worldwide, meanwhile, issued a preliminary figure for what lies ahead for the insurance industry. "in insured property losses caused by the earthquake will reach between 14,500 and 34,600 million dollars " he said.
The earthquake far outweigh the most expensive in modern history in terms of insurance losses: about 15,000 million dollars from the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California.
Of all the disasters since 1970, adjusted for inflation, will only be back on insurance costs of Hurricane Katrina.
Now the big challenge of the Japanese authorities will clear the uncertainty about the pace of economy in the coming days and avoid a "black Monday" on the Tokyo Stock Exchange will operate normally despite the earthquake.
The big three Japanese automakers-Toyota, Nissan and Honda, were forced to stop its production at the lack of supplies. Far
panic, the temple flourishes everywhere in people is what is noticed in the city, was the common courtesy of the Japanese despite the news of the reactors at increased risk, the emotion still contained under Layer pride of a people that is considered unstoppable. Some
feeling emerged that one of the terminal groups of this city when a vehicle arrived with settlers from Sendai, the city that suffered whiplash full of tragedy. The
Forecasts are disturbing and we know that the coming days will be crucial to measure the effectiveness of control of the reactors and at the same time, the official agency warns of new aftershocks. Still, the obsession is to return to work.
The subway, very widespread in the city, functioning normally, as most trains, pending the eventual impact on the scheduled power cuts.
The aim is to try to ensure the displacement of millions of people to their jobs and from them to continue with the activity cotideana.
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