TREMORS ACROSS JAPAN ON NEW YEAR

A Very Happy New Year to Everyone and may your new year be filled with growth, prosperity and tons of fun.

We might have had several plans for new year, of which, a few would have gone as planned and a few might have failed. But, we did welcome our new year with happiness and a little bit of excitement.

Unfortunately, Japan had such plans as well but, unlike us, not a few, but, all plans of its people have failed due to an unforeseen earthquake hitting the Country. Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, because it sits on top of four converging tectonic plates that constantly grind together. Some 1,500 earthquakes strike the country every year, although the majority are too mild to be felt. Most major earthquakes in Japan are caused by the Pacific Plate off the east coast, which slides beneath another plate. This subduction was the driving force behind Japan's largest ever recorded earthquake magnitude-9.1 quake that struck the Tohoku region in 2011 and triggered a massive tsunami - says Yoshihiro Hiramatsu, a seismologist at Kanazawa University in Japan.

A powerful earthquake struck Central Japan on the 1st of January, 2024 and devastated the New year for them. Destroying buildings, kicking out power to tens of thousands of homes and prompting residents in coastal areas to flee to higher grounds, in fear of an impending tsunami. The Earthquake was of 7.6 magnitude in Richter scale, has triggered waves of about 1 metre along Japan's West Coast and neighbouring South Korea. The quake shook the Noto Peninsula in the central prefecture of Ishikawa on Monday afternoon, collapsing buildings, sparking fires and triggering tsunami alerts as far away as eastern Russia.

At least 57 people have been killed by the earthquake, according to Japanese public broadcaster NHK, citing officials from the Ishikawa prefecture. And five people were killed at Tokyo Haneda airport on 2nd Jan, 2024, when a Japan Airlines jet collided with a coast guard plane on its way to provide earthquake relief.