Powerful Earthquake Rattles Japan Sparking Tsunami Fears
Thursday evening around 7 p.m. a strong 5.6 magnitude earthquake rocked the East Asian island of Japan.
There were no immediate reports of damage, and although there were initial fears that a tsunami could follow, no tsunami warning has been issued according to AP.
The quake did jolt Fukushima, but fortunately, no problems were reported at the plant. A spokeswoman for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Masashi Kato, said, "The quake has not caused anything abnormal at Fukushima Daiichi."
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Japan is still recovering from the devastating tsunami that occurred six months ago, and it is likely that people were shook up over the strong quake.
The earthquake and tsunami in March left over 21,000 people dead or missing and shook the Fukushima nuclear plant to its core.
The result was the worst nuclear disaster the world had seen since Chernobyl.
Both the Chernobyl disaster and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are classified as number 7 events on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Level 7 on the scale is interpreted as a major accident.
Level 7 indicates a major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects.
Now months after the disaster, documents are now showing that the Japanese government failed to distribute pills to people in the radius of the Fukushima plant that could have minimized the risks of radiation impact from March’s disaster.
The Japanese government ordered the distribution of the pills five days after the disaster, however, by then most residents had already evacuated to safer areas. Furthermore, the pills are most effective when taken prior to radiation exposure or within two hours after.
According to the Wall Street Journal, officials blamed the delay on a communications breakdown between the various government agencies in the wake of the disaster.
Nevertheless, since the accident, radiation experts conducted a series of tests on Fukushima residents and discovered that few residents were actually exposed to large dosages of radiation that would put their health at a significant risk.
