Scientists who are studying the Fukushima earthquake have uncovered data that predicts a "big one" in the Pacific Northwest, along the coasts of Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.

The Fukushima quake was precipitated by what is called the "Tohoku area" of underwater plates. On the Weatherbug site, Sandi Doughton quotes earthquake expert John Anderson as saying, "The Cascadia subduction zone can be seen as a mirror image of the Tohoku area." When Anderson compiled ground-motion data from the Japan quake and overlaid it on a map of the Pacific Northwest, which has a similar fault lying offshore, the two faults dovetailed almost exactly.
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The radioactive plume from the meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, due to a 9.0 earthquake which led to a massive tsunami, was initially reported as harmless by the time it reached the US. But new statistics show that this was NOT the case: An estimated 14,000 deaths in the United States have now been linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster, and the impact is seen as being roughly comparable to 16,500 radiation-related deaths that took place in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986.read more

After the disaster at Fukushima, and the discovery that some nuclear power plants right here in the US (such as Indian Point, which is close to one of the most populated cities in the world: New York City) may be just as vulnerable, scientists are rethinking nuclear power. Should we forget about it (as Germany has)–or find a new way to use it?
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What would you do if you were a baseball player who was afraid to slide to second base because you might pick up radiation from the dust? This would be as big a disaster in Japan as would be in the US, since baseball is one of that countries most popular sports.

There has been a vast radiation disaster in Japan, and efforts have been made to minimize its effects, but now it is becoming more likely that radioactive material from the Fukushima reactor is reaching Japan’s cities (and playing fields).
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