Earthquakes are a fact of life in Japan. In the past month alone, the country has been hit by a huge quake in Ishikawa Prefecture and another in Mie. Following are questions and answers dealing with basic information on earthquakes:
How often does a quake occur in Japan and why is the nation so prone to them?
Including those too small for people to feel, there are more than 100,000 earthquakes every year in Japan and surrounding areas, according to the Seismology Society of Japan. Of those, 1,000 to 1,500 exceed 1 on the 7-level Japanese seismic intensity scale, meaning they are strong enough for people to notice. In terms of the open-ended magnitude scale, records show that over the past century there has been an average of one magnitude-7 or greater quake almost every year.