Japan's Quake Impact equalled world's nuclear arsenal: Researchers

Earthquakes are common in Japan, but the one that hit the country on 11^th March was so powerful that it caused a 400 km X 160 km wide rupture in Earth’s crust due to the powerful interplay of tectonic plates off the coast of northern Japan, creating a 30 foot wall of water ripping apart the Japanese inland at speeds of 10 km/hr while the other end reached the Pacific Ocean in California about 10 hours later.

Scientists believe the total combined energy released by the earthquake/tsunami was about a thousand times the  world’s nuclear weapons, or to put it simple - around 6.7 trillion tons of TNT.

Japan, being one of the world’s most seismically active centers, is placed around the “Ring of Fire”, making it vulnerable to titanic geological forces and accounts to over 20% of the world’s earthquakes due to the congregation of several continental and oceanic plates like:

•  North America Plate 
•  Pacific Plate 
• Phillipine Plate and 
• Eurasian Plate

The Friday earthquake figuring 8.9 in Richter scale, ripped apart these 30 miles of thick plates made of basalt and granite, creating tsunami waves that swiped of Japan’s north eastern coast damaging buildings, cars, ships and taking many innocent lives.

According to Patrick Dasgupta, Professor of Astrophysics in Delhi University, the powerful quake has moved Japan’s main island, Honshu by about 8 feet, causing Earth’s axis to wobble by about 4 inches, shortening the day by 1.6 microseconds, thus making the globe spin faster.

Moreover, the natural catastrophe severely damaged Japan’s nuclear installations triggering panic worldwide. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency confirmed that the power plant at the quake-hit Fukushima Prefecture had lost all its cooling capability, and with Tokyo Electric Power Company confirming the agency of an emergency at the Number Two reactor at its Fukushima Number One power station after the reactor’s emergency cooling power system broke down, experts fear another hydrogen explosion. Earlier a Japanese official had confirmed that around 22 people suffered from radiation contamination and up to 190 may have been exposed, its high time that the mankind realized the dangerous side of these nuclear technologies.

The Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, "the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear incident have been the biggest crisis Japan has encountered in the 65 years since the end of World War II,” and added, “We're under scrutiny on whether we, the Japanese people, can overcome this crisis.”, it remains to be seen how the international community helps the world’s third largest economy bring on track.

Meanwhile, aids have been pouring in from all the developed as well as emerging nations like India to help the country rattle out of the biggest disaster since WWII and with techies from Google Crisis Response, Facebook associating with Blue Cross raising their voice for the donations and awareness about the incident is really commendable.

You can click here for donating the Japan’s earthquake victims at Google Crisis Response site or check and update the persons missing in the earthquake and tsunami below:

We wish Japan a speedy recovery!

Venky, Signing Off!