The likelihood of a powerful earthquake striking over the next 30 years remains high along Pacific coastal areas of Japan in light of a spate of recent aftershocks triggered by the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, scientists say.

The March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, off shore of the Tohoku region, (herein called the Tohoku Earthquake) was detected years in advance using a combined earthquake prediction algorithm called M8–MSc, which is based on premonitory seismicity patterns and prior to this prediction had been validated by …

In the first hours after the earthquake, Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto moved to set up an emergency command centre in Tokyo, and a large number of rescue workers and some 100,000 members of the Japanese Self-Defense Force were rapidly mobilized to deal with the crisis.

The research finds that the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, quakes shifted underground stresses, making the San Andreas fault—the state’s longest and most dangerous fault—three times more likely to rupture. “But that is because we do not appreciate the way the network of fault lines connect across the state.”

Can asteroids, meteorites or man-made explosions cause tsunamis? Fortunately, for mankind, it is indeed very rare for a meteorite or an asteroid to reach the earth. Although no documented tsunami has ever been generated by an asteroid impact, the effects of such an event would be disastrous.

Usually, it takes an earthquake with a Richter magnitude exceeding 7.5 to produce a destructive tsunami. Most tsunamis are generated by shallow, great earthquakes at subductions zones.

That warning, he says, can go out within three to five minutes of the undersea earthquake and gives an early indication of its potential to cause a tsunami which may do damage. “If the earthquake is big it could be moving quite a lot of sea floor — often along a subduction zone”, he explains.