Tag: Earthquake

Even this recent deadly earthquake in Japan cannot stop the Dokdo madness:

Seoul’s foreign ministry expressed a strong protest against Tokyo on Tuesday as Japan’s weather agency included South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo in a tsunami advisory issued after a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck Japan.

In a map showing tsunami alerts on the Japan Meteorological Agency’s website, the rocky islets were highlighted in yellow, along with other regions on Japan’s west coast, indicating tsunami advisories were issued for the areas. 

The powerful quake struck the Noto Peninsula and surrounding areas in Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture on New Year’s Day, reportedly killing several people and causing tsunamis on South Korea’s east coast.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is really an issue that President Yoon needs to work with Japan to resolve to further improve bilateral relations.

The tsunami waves in South Korea got up to 67 inches which is just over 2 feet, so fortunately these were pretty small waves that hit South Korea:

South Korea reported small tsunamis in parts of the East Sea on Monday following a major earthquake off Japan’s west coast.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said a 7.6 magnitude quake that struck Ishikawa and nearby prefectures around 4 p.m. caused minor tsunamis in waters off South Korea’s east coast province of Gangwon on Monday evening.

According to the KMA, a wave off the east coast city of Gangneung reached 20 centimeters at 6:01 p.m., while a wave seen off another coastal town of Donghae was measured at 45 centimeters at 6:05 p.m.

As of 8 p.m., a tsunami wave had hit 67 centimeters off Mukho, a district in Donghae. Earlier in the day, the KMA had estimated that the maximum vertical height of the tsunami waves in the region would stay below 50 centimeters — a level that will prompt a tsunami warning. The KMA also said even waves at 20 to 30 centimeters can still cause damage.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Thank goodness this was only another small earthquake, I can only imagine how much damaged would be caused in South Korea if ever hit by a large earthquake:

A 3.5 magnitude earthquake struck northern Jangsu, 216 km south of Seoul, on Saturday, South Korea’s weather agency reported, with no casualties or damage being immediately reported.

The quake occurred in the region in North Jeolla Province at 7:07 p.m. according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). The KMA initially reported the earthquake was a magnitude 4.1 but shortly revised it down.

The depth was estimated at 6 km.

It was the third-strongest quake to occur on the Korean Peninsula or waters around it so far this year. 

The province’s fire authorities have confirmed receiving around 40 reports related to the earthquake, but no damages have been reported so far.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The usual caveats apply when it comes to these unnamed sources out of North Korea because it is so hard to independently verify what they are saying.  This source could just be telling a journalist looking for a click bait headline what they want to hear:

An artificial earthquake caused by a North Korean nuclear test in September reportedly caused buildings to collapse and killed scores of people, including schoolchildren, South Korean media reported this week.

On Sept. 3, North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test, successfully detonating a hydrogen bomb — one that could fit onto an intercontinental missile (ICBM).

The blast produced two shallow earthquakes in the Punggye-ri region, where North Korea’s nuclear test facility is located, U.S. and Chinese government seismologists reported at the time. Authorities in Japan, South Korea and numerous nongovernment experts in the United States confirmed that the earthquakes were likely the result of a nuclear test.

An unnamed source, who recently visited a village about 8 kilometers from Punggye-ri, described the damage to the South and North Development (SAND), a research institute that works with defectors from the North, according to the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The source said houses and a school collapsed in the village of Sindong-ri and that dozens of people were killed and injured, the paper reported.

“September 3 was a Sunday, but some 150 students were waiting in their classrooms to do some work,” the source said, according to Chosun Ilbo. “Casualties occurred when half of the school building crumbled.”  [Voice of America]

You can read more at the link, but if this is true the team at 38 North who analyze commercial satellite imagery should be able to confirm if there has been collapsed buildings in the days after the nuclear test. So far I have seen no reports from them confirming damaged buildings after the earthquake in North Korea.

I wonder if this earthquake was caused by a collapsing tunnel at the nuclear test site which hopefully isn’t leaking out radiation now:

A 3.2 magnitude earthquake detected near North Korea’s nuclear test site Saturday was judged to be a natural quake, South Korea’s weather agency said.

The tremor occurred at 5:29 p.m. , 20 kilometers southeast of the country’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the northeastern province where the North conducted its sixth nuclear test Sept. 3, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration.

The agency upgraded the scale of quake from its earlier assessment of the 3.0 magnitude.

“The quake has been analyzed to have occurred naturally,” an agency official said. “A sound wave, which is usually generated in the event of an artificial earthquake, was not detected.”

The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said that it detected two seismic events in North Korea, but they were “unlikely (to have been) man-made.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Workers retile the quake-damaged roof of a traditional Korean house in Gyeongju, some 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Sept. 23, 2016. The government has designated the historical city as a special disaster area after a recent series of earthquakes caused property damage. (Yonhap)