(Photo: Reuters/Toru Hanai)A Japanese family prays Sunday for a brother and his family killed by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture. They were marking the first anniversary of the disasters that killed thousands and set off a nuclear crisis.An earthquake hit Japan, and the 5.5-magnitude catastrophe has left the country's Honshu Island shaken Friday. Although it occurred just off the small island, no tsunami warning has been issued by authorities.
The earthquake that hit Japan was strong, and it's 5.5-mganitude fervor- later downgraded to 5.2 by the Japan Meteorological Agency- was felt far and wide. The quake stuck in Ibaraki Prefecture at 4.0 magnitude, Fukushima, Saitama, and Tochigi all at 3.0 magnitude.
The lack of large-scale damage reports by the U.S. Geological Survey and others could be due to the location of the quake: it occurred at about 21 miles beneath the ocean's surface, 118 miles northeast of Tokyo.
This earthquake follows another quake earlier this year that shook Japan with much stronger force in March. A 6.8-magnitude earthquake occurred about 270 miles off the east coast of the island, but again, very little damage was done.
Because of the quake's location, the tsunami it caused- a half-meter in height- soon dissipated, and the advisory was called off.
Both quakes pale in comparison to the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that reduced whole neighborhoods to rubble in March of 2011. The tsunami that followed left 19,000 people either dead or missing, and caused a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant. The result was the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, according to The Inquisitr.
The nearly 13 million tons of debris left from the earthquake had to be combed through for bodies, then taken to other locations in Japan, ground up, and finally burned. To this day, teams are still disposing of the mess the earthquake caused last year.
Adding to the high death toll, worst nuclear disaster in 25 years, and lengthy cleanup is the cost to Japanese citizens. The cleanup crews working year-round and the damage are estimated to cost the country $125 billion.
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