Japan: Magnitude 5.8 Earthquake Hits Fukushima

Fact checked

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck close to the nuclear power plant at Fukushima which was previously destroyed in 2011 by an earthquake and Tsunami

The quake struck 62 km from Namie, Fukushima, at 8:19 AM eastern US time, on April 20, 2016

The Japanese Earthquake Center and US Geological Survey have both reported the quake

Superstation95 reports:

The Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power plant saw three reactors meltdown and explode in March, 2011.  Clean-up of the radiation continues to this very day, with spent fuel still remaining in some damaged fuel pools.  If those pools are further damaged, they could collapse, draining immediately, and causing a nuclear fire to erupt in the spent fuel rods.

earthquake- fukushima

The quake was centered around 60 miles south east of Sendai, Honshu, near where a devastating quake and tsunami struck in March 2011.

Back in 2011, the disaster began with a quake about this size in the same area, and was followed a little while later by a massive magnitude 9.2 which generated the tsunami.  All eyes are now watching this same area of the ocean to see if history will repeat itself today.

Despite serious concern over the recent earthquake activity in Japan, the atomic regulator refuses to shut down the nation’s only operating nuclear plant on earthquake-hit Kyushu island

According to the Telegraph: Kumamoto city is located around 72 miles from Sendai nuclear power station, the only nuclear power plant which is currently in operation in Japan, operated by Kyushu Electric Power.

Last weekend, a group of writers and journalists joined forces to ask operators to immediately suspend operations at the Sendai plant in the aftermath of the earthquake, to avoid a repeat of the Fukushima crisis.

“Based on the experience at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, it is clear to everyone that it would be too late if you waited for some abnormality to occur,” the group said in its request faxed to Kyushu Electric Power, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.