Earthquake hits off coast of Japan near Fukushima

Nuclear Newswire quotes Andrew Whittaker, SUNY Distinguished Professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering, in a story on a recent earthquake off the coast of Japan.

“To generate a significant tsunami, you need uplifting of the seafloor,” he said. “Think of water in a bathtub. You suddenly raise up one half of the bathtub vertically with respect to the other half, and you create a wave… The likelihood of significant movement of the seafloor for a magnitude 7.3 earthquake with such a deep hypocenter is much lower than, say, for the magnitude 9 event of 11 years ago.”

Read the story here.