The National Weather Service issued a statement indicating there is no tsunami threat for the West Coast following the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck off Japan’s eastern coast, near Fukushima.
“Based on earthquake information and historic tsunami records, the earthquake was not sufficient to generate a tsunami,” the NWS wrote.
Japan is approximately 5,300 miles from the West Coast. The U.S. Geological Survey put Southern California cities on an unusually high alert for a potential for a “big earthquake” last month.
For over two years now, Gov. Jerry Brown has been warning the public that the “big one” could be near.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency had reported that the epicenter of the earthquake was about 10 km in depth. It was felt in Tokyo.
Fukushima was also the site of the devastating 9.1 magnitude earthquake, and ensuing tsunami, that struck the island nation in 2011, killing close to 20,000 people.
The tsunamis, which were up to 40 feet high, flooded the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, triggering a nuclear meltdown; the radiation effects of the catastrophe are arguably still felt by the island’s residents today.
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