On Friday September 26, 2003 a magnitude-8 earthquake hit Hokkaido, Japan. On Sunday the 28th Japan was still being shook by powerful aftershocks. Japan has one the largest chances in the world to receive an earthquake because, it is located along the Pacific activity zone of the "Ring of Fire". Luckily only 570 people were injured, and no casualties occurred. About 34,00 on the island of Hokkaido were urged to leave because of the possibility of tsunamis, aftershocks and the collapses of damaged buildings. Only about 5,600 actually left. The tsunamis were smaller that expected, but still held a threat of bad weather. Two fisherman boats turned over in result of the waves. On Friday an oil tank caught on fire from the quake, and burned many barrels of crude oil. The aftershocks were still bad Sunday morning, not even reducing to half of the first quake magnitude. Two more oil tanks also caught on fire on Sunday. One the cause is not known of. The other is believed to be caused by the aftershocks. The Japanese were very fortunate, the last quake on the island in 1993 killed 230 people.
I chose this story because it had good content to write with, and was recent. I think the people of Hokkaido were very lucky that a repeat of the 1993 earthquake didn't reoccur. I think that more people should have listened to the advisory and left their homes to go to safe land. If something like huge tsunamis hit many would have been killed or injured. I also think people should take precaution in potentially dangerous situations. They should listen to experts, they know more, they study those kinds of things for a living. I was suprised that two day later the quakes magnitude had not gone down to at least half. I didn't know aftershocks could be that strong. I also didn't think that an aftershock could tip over a large tanker. I am glad that the fire didn't spread or hurt anyone. Another thing that I didn't know was that Japan is one of the Earth's most earthquake-prone countries.
