[Saltheart]

There have only ever been 4 recorded higher than 8.9 since I guess they had the ability to measure going back to the mid 1700. 3 of these were in fairly remote areas but one was in Indonesia recently. I doubt indonesia has the population density of Japan.

The deadliest earthquake was in a populated area of China. It was only an 8.0 . You got to figure that one 10 times stronger in a densely populated area like japan is going to affect a lot of people. Hopefully the better infrastructure of Japan vs China will mean more rescued , less diseases after , etc. Luckily , this one's center was a long way off the coast not on the land but the down side of that is that being in the water , it caused the tsunami.

The 8 foot shift is the type of thing they are worried about as the moon sweeps by so close during the coming 2 weeks. They liken it to a high tide but it will be the land rising and falling as well as the oceans of course. Lots of earthquakes are do to a pinned area of the faults letting go. There is a tremendous amount of energy stored when a strong pin locks in the land masses that are trying to slide across one another. the huge shifts expected do to the added moon pull can cause these pinned faults to unlock and slide a lot all at once.

lets hope there are no more as big as this one in Japan.

They say New England is not immune. We haven't had a bad earthquake in a long time but some say its do to a strong pin and that when or if it lets go , we could experience a really big one. Of course the most famous one talked about in the USA is the San Andreas fault in california that people say will "cause part of Caifornia to fall into the pacific ocean." Events like this one in japan make it seem a lot more feasible than just what is mentioned in Sci Fi movies.