by Pongphon Sarnsamak
The Nation
March 15, 2011

from NationMultimedia Website

Japanese seismicists and geologists are being doubtful about the recent Great East Japan earthquake with 9 magnitude and killed over ten thousands people on last Friday, saying it was abnormal phenomenon.

"Nobody could tell the reasons about this strange phenomenon," a prominent Japanese geophysicist Professor Michio Hashizume, who is lecturer of Chulalongkorn Univesity's Department of Geology.

His finding was presented at the round table discussion entitled "The new finding from recent earthquake in Japan and concerning related with Thai society" organized Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Science.

He said he,

was surprised by this earthquake by the size of the area of fault. It was between 400 kilometers and 100 kilometers wide.

Moreover, at least "7 earthquakes with magnitude between 5 to 7 had occurred after the killer earthquake near Sendai on Friday," he added.

"These series of quakes are not the aftershocks. So far, nobody could explain how these small quakes linked with the earthquake in Sendai," Michio said.

The small quakes with between 5 magnitude to 7 magnitude had occurred in different areas in Japan. The quakes did not occur in the proper areas that aftershock should occur.

The aftershocks should occur within 100 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake.

"This was very strange. Everybody is now being headache," he said.

He said the Japan Earthquake Prediction Committee had recently predicted that the earthquake with 7 magnitude nearby Sendai city would be occurred in next 30 years but it had took place earlier than the prediction.

"We need at least ten years to study about this phenomenon," he added.

Macho also expressed his concerns over the constructions in Japan especially in nuclear plants across country.

Even a preliminary report confirmed that the nuclear plants were not destroyed by the quake but they were damaged by the powerful tsunami.

That means most of constructions in Japan including nuke plants were designed and constructed to handle with the earthquake except the powerful tsunami.

"This was our weak points to handle with natural disasters," he said.

"It was our lesson to learn how to improve the facilities in Japan to prevent the devastation from tsunami," he added.

However, he said the Japan Earthquake Prediction Agency has predicted that another earthquake with 7 magnitude would take place in Japan next three days.

Meanwhile, Sathon Vicharnwannalak, a lecturer of Physics Department, Chulalongkorn University said there were a lot of confusion about the tsunami early warning messages that released by Thailand disaster related agencies such as Meteorological Department, National Disaster Warning Center, and Mineral Resources Department.

"There was no unity among related agencies to issue tsunami alert messages and caused confusion among people in 15 provinces in the south," he said.