Nuclear Power Plants Undamaged by Kagoshima Earthquake and Tsunami

Summary: The magnitude 7.0 Kagoshima earthquake and Nakanoshima tsunami striking Japan Nov. 14, 2015, caused no injuries and left nuclear power plants undamaged.

Japan's nuclear power plants include Kyushu Island's Genkai and Sendai nuclear power plants (lower left): Argonne National Laboratory's International Nuclear Safety Center, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

No damages or injuries are reported from the magnitude 7.0 Kagoshima earthquake at 5:51 a.m. Japan Standard Time Nov. 14, 2015 (20:51 Nov. 15, 2015, Coordinated Universal Time), and the 1-foot- (30.48-centimeter-) high Nakanoshima tsunami off southern Japan at 6:45 a.m. JST (21:45 UTC).

A 62-mile (99.78-kilometer) depth 98 miles (157.71 kilometers) west-southwest of Makurazaki, dried fish flake center, and 199 miles (191.51 kilometers) west-southwest of Kagoshima, prefectural capital, belongs within the earthquake strike zone, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Kagoshima Prefecture covers the southwestern tip of Kyūshū Island.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center described a tsunami strike zone off Nakanoshima, largest of Kagoshima Prefecture’s Tokara Islands, until 7:20 a.m. JST (20:20 UTC).

Kagoshima experiences earthquakes and tsunamis less frequently than extreme weather. Residents face occasional heavy floods, landslides and rains from September to June and frequent torrential rains during the typhoon season from June to September.

Japan’s location on the Pacific Ring of Fire of earthquakes, eruptions and tsunamis gives Kagoshima volcanism.

The 5.6-mile (9.01-kilometer) by 3.1-mile (4.99-kilometer) Nakanoshima 81 miles (130.36 kilometers) to the south has, like others in the prefectural island chain, volcanic origins.

Mount Shinmoedake in Kirishima is under yellow level 2 alert, with levels 4 signifying evacuation preparations and 5 evacuation, since Oct. 22, 2013. Seismologists judge Mount Sakurajima in Kinko Bay armed and dangerous, with an orange level 3 alert since Sept. 1, 2015.

Auxiliary power, building codes, evacuation routes and shelters, ground-motion sensors, hazard maps, portable generators and tsunami seawalls knit the Japanese archipelago into a nationwide early-warning system of disaster preparedness and emergency response in the aftermath of the 6,434 casualties of the Kobe earthquake of Jan. 17, 1995.

The sensors manage to detect within seconds the 3- to 4-mile-per-second (4.83- to 6.44-kilometers-per-second) primary and 1.5- to 2-mile-per-second (2.41- to 3.22-kilometer-per-second) secondary waves preceding an earthquake’s destructive surface waves.

They need 1 to 2 seconds to pinpoint earthquake locations and 1 to 2 seconds to predict earthquake magnitudes before transmitting data for the Japan Meteorological Agency’s national broadcasts.

Magnitude 7.0 earthquakes and 12-inch-high tsunamis offer infrequent cause for alarm.

Over 1,000 tremors plague Japan yearly.

Environmentalists question siting 30 boiling and 24 pressurized water reactors along coastal Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyūshū and Shikoku.

Union of Concerned Scientists David Lochbaum and Edwin Lyman and The Philadelphia Inquirer Pulitzer Prize-winning team journalist Susan Q. Stranahan reported: “because of its speed, the system broadcasts warnings before all seismic data have arrived, and thus it tends to significantly underestimate the size of an earthquake. Over several days, the Japan Meteorological Agency upgraded the quake, ultimately to magnitude 9, forty-five times more energetic than the original 7.9 prediction.”

Genkai and Sendai nuclear power plants in Saga and Kagoshima stand undamaged from Fukushima’s underestimated disasters of March 11, 2011 and Saturday’s spot-on predictions.

seismotectonics of area of southwestern Japan around Kagoshima earthquake of November 2015: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) via USGS Earthquake Hazards Program

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Japan's nuclear power plants: Argonne National Laboratory's International Nuclear Safety Center, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_Nuclear_power_plants_map.gif

seismotectonics of earthquake-riddled area of Japan within Pacific Ocean's Ring of Fire: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) via USGS Earthquake Hazards Program @ https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us10003y71#region-info

For further information:

Associated Press. 14 November 2015. "Magnitude-7 Earthquake Strikes off Southwest Japan." The Washington Times > News > World.
Available @ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/14/magnitude-7-earthquake-strikes-southwest-japan/

Football TV. 13 November 2015. "Japan Earthquake (7.0) 14 November 2015 - Buildings move / Terremoto en Japan." YouTube.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeXLhmZ1XrE

Lochbaum, David; Lyman, Edwin; and Stranahan, Susan Q. 2014. Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster. New York, NY: The New Press.