Japan says 70 percent chance of a new major earthquake by Wednesday

People are stranded on the top of a building in Minami Sanriku, Miyagi, northern Japan Saturday, March 12, 2011 following Friday's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. (AP / Yomiuri Shiimbun, Naoki Ueda)

TOKYO (BNO NEWS) — With Japan struggling to recover from an enormous earthquake that struck off its northeastern coast on Friday afternoon, experts say there is a significant chance that a major aftershock can strike within the next few days.

The initial 8.9-magnitude earthquake at 2.46 p.m. local time (0546 GMT) was centered about 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of Sendai in Japan, on the nation’s main island of Honshu. It struck about 24.4 kilometers (15.2 miles) deep, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

On Sunday, JMA said that based on the occurrence of aftershocks so far, there is a 70 percent chance that an aftershock of 7.0 on greater will hit by 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday. After Wednesday morning, the chance of such an earthquake happening will be about 50 percent until 10 a.m. local time on Saturday.

“Tsunami may occur after a strong aftershock. Be cautious when a tsunami warning or advisory is issued,” the seismological agency said in a statement. “The area is so large that, when compared to past cases, the activity of aftershocks is very high.”

Japan has been rocked by dozens of strong aftershocks since Friday afternoon, but only one of them exceeded magnitude 7.0. The 8.9 monster quake unleashed a huge tsunami, devastating local coastlines and killing more than 1,000 people. Fears are the death toll will exceed 10,000.

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10 Comments

  1. risha
    March 14, 2011

    god is good

  2. shatta
    March 14, 2011

    2012 boy

  3. God Fearing
    March 14, 2011

    Despite all this tragedy facing the world, some of us spend our God given time tearing each other down and attempting to create a world wide issue of Multi-Passport bearing Politicians….Why all the hate, why all the bitterness,why all the animosity, why all the name calling,why all the character assasination? God will always be in control.

  4. David
    March 13, 2011

    you no wht people should give there lives to christ,not because of what happen in japan but bible profacy has to fulfilled .so man need to give there lives to christ ,do it fast

  5. Sanaa
    March 13, 2011

    Oh boy prayers for mercy prayers for mercy. Our Earth is crying out! And when you consider, that Japan was struck and America has dead bodies, it just puts things in perspective of how miniscule the world really is. We are each other’s neighbors indeed. Pray people pray for each other. We are no longer seaprated by land mass and water bodies, disasters of this nature proves that. Peace on Earth. Lord have mercy on mankind.

  6. TeteMorne I from...
    March 13, 2011

    Saying a prayer AFTER the damage has been done is sometimes futile. Shouldn’t we always be in a prayerful mode anyway?

  7. Humble
    March 13, 2011

    Prayers go out to Japan and Haiti, yes Lord watch over the people who are have to face this.

  8. mouth of the south
    March 13, 2011

    the major difference between japan n haiti are the stricter building codes in japan,,,, the tsunami did alot more damage to japan than the earthquake which hit haiti,,, but in haiti over 250000 people lost their lives with more unaccounted for,,, whereas in japan they estimate about 10000 could be feared dead if not less,,, so this shows that building to specific qualifications is important n rules should be enforced to ensure all buildings are built to quality standard,,, in fact the earthquake itself didn’t do much damage,,,, it’s the tsunami which was unleashed which caused majority of damage n lives lost

    • Charmer
      March 13, 2011

      Very good information, MOTS.

  9. charles
    March 13, 2011

    Say a prayer for the world.

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