June 17, 2012
By TAIRIKU KUROSAWA/ Staff Writer
Japan achieved its postwar recovery and rapid growth in an era in which it experienced no major earthquakes, but that period of respite, brief in geological terms, now appears to have passed.
Since the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, no less than nine temblors have been powerful enough to earn official names from the Japan Meteorological Agency. They have included the Iwate-Miyagi Inland Earthquake, the Noto Peninsula Earthquake, the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake, the Geiyo Earthquake, and the Great East Japan Earthquake.
For people living in Japan, the obvious question is whether this traffic jam of catastrophe has just been bad luck, or whether the country has actually entered a period of heightened seismologic activity. Can the country or particular parts of it expect more disasters like those of the past 17 years?...
