Doctors here say they see more people who know these earthquakes ghosts, and other "earthquake disease" symptoms such as dizziness and anxiety.
And it is not surprising. As if the threat of radiation from a nuclear power plant crippled was not enough, Tokyo and in the region for its northeast have been under a constant flow of aftershocks since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that triggered a devastating tsunami on March 11. Two earthquakes have been felt in Tokyo on Wednesday morning, three Tuesday, a large Monday and a very large magnitude 7.1 last Thursday.
Overall, on 400 aftershocks of magnitude 5.0 or northeast of the Japan since March 11. Which is of significant earthquakes in a month as the Japan known generally in two and a half, according to the Meteorological Agency to the Japan.
Earthquakes are complicating efforts to control the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power. For example, the earthquake Monday knocked unconscious at the Fukushima plant cooling for almost an hour.
Whenever a significant earthquake occurs, the first question on many minds is whether if the nuclear plant was also damaged, and if a new cloud of radiation is on the way. A spokesman for the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the factory owner, is then pushed on television to reassure viewers.
Government officials are concerned that in the precipitation to cool the reactors and prevent explosions of hydrogen, the vulnerability of the plant to an another tsunami has been neglected.
"A week ago, we thought that the major risk was an explosion of hydrogen", a senior official in the Office of the Prime Minister said Tuesday. "I believe that the major risk at the moment is an aftershock and tsunami".
Hidehiko Nishiyama, the Assistant Director General of nuclear regulatory Japan, the nuclear and industrial safety agency, told a press conference Wednesday night that three measures are being considered that would allow electricity and air conditioning plant remains intact even after a tsunami measuring 15 metres, or 49 feet. Right now the site can withstand a tsunami of only about 18 feet, he said. One measure is to interconnect the rows of external power supply which were built at the plant, so that if a power line is broken, the other can still carry electricity for various reactors.
A second measure is to develop a generator on a small hill within the plant, and the third is to place a pumper fire engine on the hill that could send water reactors and spent fuel poolseven if the electricity was interrupted.
The Japan, located atop four tectonic plates collided, has a long history of earthquakes and a sophisticated technology to deal with.
A detection system passes the warnings of some waiting for a few seconds in advance for television channels and many cell phones of earthquakes. In recent weeks, it was not uncommon to see almost all people in a restaurant or a train suddenly watching their cellular phones at the same time.
Yurekuru, a free application for the iPhone that offers these warnings (his name could be translated as "shaking is coming"), now has 1.5 million users, compared with only 100,000 before the earthquake on March 11, according to RC Solutionthe application developer.
Geologists say that the frequency of aftershocks has declined since March 11 and will continue to decline, but the willingness to always remain higher than normal for a long time. "There is an increase in the frequency and it will last at least five or ten years, said Ross s. Stein, Geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, who has studied the situation in the Japan."
The earthquake on March 11 was so strong that a Japan Coast Guard instrument on the floor of the Pacific Ocean close to the epicentre of monitoring moved 24 metres, or approximately 79 feet, to the East. The city of Sendai, including airport was flooded by the tsunami, moved about 13 feet, according to Shinji Toda, Professor at Kyoto University.
These major movements have changed the constraints in the Earth, increasing the likelihood of earthquakes on some fault lines while reducing the probability on others, including the one involved in the 1923 Tokyo earthquake.
But overall, said Dr. Stein, the risks have increased. "There is this very wide voltage of seismicity extends 300 miles of the failure zone," he said.
Satoko Oki, an Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo Research Institute, stated that a replica of the earthquake on March 11 could reach magnitude 8.0.
There are some precedents. 2004 Earthquake of magnitude 9.1 near Sumatra, Indonesia, which created a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people, was followed three months later by measuring a 8.6 and by the most enormous four later.
But the earthquake of 8.8 magnitude in the Chile early 2010 has not yet produced a larger 7.1 aftershock, said Dr. Stein.
Of course, the series of earthquakes has not caused the same panic and mass exodus as the fears of radiation in the first week after the beginning of the nuclear crisis. Still, with levels of radiation in the Tokyo of air having sharply since then, some people interviewed on the street said they worried about replicas more radiation.
Dr. Hideaki Sakata, Director of the clinic of the Mejiro University, which is to deal with Ms. Suzuki, said that twitches when he is not is similar to continuous rocking sensation when it first obtains a boat on land.
Dr. Kazuhiro Soeda, an ear specialist ent to Utsunomiya, outside Tokyo, which also deals with patients who have problems dealing with aftershocks, said: "people are more too sensitive." This is what we have never known before. ?
Makiko Inoue, Kantaro Suzuki and Ken Ijichi contributed reporting.
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