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M5.3 quake rocks Fukushima; Tokyo feels shake

26 Comments

A magnitude 5.3 earthquake rocked Fukushima Prefecture early Friday morning, but no tsunami warning was issued.

The epicenter of the earthquake was 22 kilometers below the ground, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It struck 20 kilometers west of the city of Iwaki, bordering the Pacific Ocean, at 2:25 a.m.

The epicenter was also about 50 kilometers southwest of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was crippled by the major quake and tsunami in March, 2011.

The Japan Meteorological Agency, which put the quake at magnitude 5.8, said no tsunami warning had been issued.

The tremor caused buildings to shake in Tokyo, 175 kilometers away, an AFP reporter said.

It came just hours after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toured the Fukushima nuclear plant on Thursday, ordering its operator Tokyo Electric Power to fix radioactive water leaks there.

TEPCO said in a statement to Kyodo news agency that no abnormalities in radiation or equipment were observed at the plant after the quake.

© (C) 2013 AFP

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

26 Comments
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It's an aftershock of 311 according to NHK.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

"It came just hours after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toured the Fukushima nuclear plant on Thursday, ordering its operator Tokyo Electric Power to fix radioactive water leaks there."

I think it also came to remind the PM and Tepco that temporary measures or duct tape, like they used before, is not a viable way of dealing with the reactor. That is if they did not get the message with the taifu on Monday!

5 ( +8 / -3 )

Woke me right up!

1 ( +2 / -1 )

TEPCO always says there are no abnormalities but the fact is they do not know whether there is an abnormality or not or hiding it.

9 ( +11 / -2 )

Another rude awakening for us here in south Iwate, too.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

It woke me up too :(

1 ( +2 / -1 )

If only it'd happened while Abe'd been there.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

Japan is really an earthquake country. Why did they build up so many nuclear power plants on shaking unstable lands? Fukushima seems to be a good example of the result.

1 ( +8 / -7 )

Kwatt, would you prefer that Japan had hundreds of coal power stations polluting the air instead?

4 ( +12 / -8 )

Stay on topic please.

@Sushi

Coal power is just one option. There are other options such as hotspring power, wind power, solar power, etc. Japan has considered other powers 20 years ago. But they did not because they did not want other powers, because of just money. TEPCO knew that dismantling scrapping nuclear plants will cost much more than they thought.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

Kwatt, would you prefer that Japan had hundreds of coal power stations polluting the air instead?

It's not like they are the old smilking coal plants of old, but modern coal plants burn much cleaner than before. Does Japan have any gas turbine generators? Solar is fine, but remember that winter is coming and the daylight hours are getting shorter. Solar could be a part of the solution, but it will fall short. Probably if Japan's nuclear program was run by people who knew what they were doing, and not trying to follow the Japanese business way of "hiding the truth" in plain sight they wouldn't be in this position. Let professionals run things, and keep the politicians and money makers out of it.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

"TEPCO said in a statement to Kyodo news agency that no abnormalities in radiation or equipment were observed at the plant after the quake."

So in other words the radiation is still leaking normally and out of control.

10 ( +14 / -4 )

Yup, my building shook. i wonder if we will get an update on the atate of those flimsy holding tanks full of radioactive water......

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Woo, so that is possibly the strongest quake to hit Fukushima since 3/11 and TEPCO only has a simple one line statement to reassure the public everything is still as trucked up as usual? These cowboys are as transparent as mud! Why should we believe anything they say?

4 ( +7 / -3 )

More like a Shindo 2 in my part of Tokyo. Nothing special. Earthquakes do happen every single day.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

CrazyJoeSep. 20, 2013 - 07:01AM JST

It's an aftershock of 311 according to NHK.

FWIW, Asahi TV news at 11:30 later in the morning interviewed a Tokyo professor who said it was not an aftershock of 3.11. Other stations at the same time parroted what NHK said above.

Fuel rod removal from Unit 4 supposedly begins in November. Let's all hope for no quakes while that's going on.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Well going by tepco's usual pattern it will end up being a press release something like;

Tepco: Well about 1 Litre of water splashed out of one tank so we decided to release 1000 tons.... Anyone with a Brain: What? Why? Tepco: Oh so no more would splash out... Anyone with a brain: Why are these people still in charge of this?

Happy long weekend everyone.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I wonder if it could either be a lie or they shut their eyes so's they could say nothing out of the ordinary was observed. I would feel a lot more confident if an individual foreign observation team was employed.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Seems like an *unintelligent and crazy risk to utilize nuclear power here.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Maria: If only it'd happened while Abe'd been there.

That's exactly what I thought when I read this!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It's not like they are the old smilking coal plants of old, but modern coal plants burn much cleaner than before.

Yet, according to the American Lung 24,000 people die a year because of coal power. And coal produces 44% of the US's total CO2 emissions... yeah, that's the environmentally friendly alternative that is available today.

Yes, Japan should ABSOLUTELY be looking at increasing it's renewable and environmentally friendly power sources. But please stop saying a return to fossil fuels is better for health or the environment. There are thousands of pages on this on the internet. You're not going to find a scientific page saying that coal is safer.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

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