New Year’s Day Quake in Japan Revives the Trauma of 2011 Triple Disasters 

A man cycles past a collapsed building in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, 03 January 2024. (EPA)
A man cycles past a collapsed building in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, 03 January 2024. (EPA)
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New Year’s Day Quake in Japan Revives the Trauma of 2011 Triple Disasters 

A man cycles past a collapsed building in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, 03 January 2024. (EPA)
A man cycles past a collapsed building in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, 03 January 2024. (EPA)

The powerful earthquake that shattered the peace of New Year’s Day in central Japan did not spur massive tsunamis like those that scoured the Pacific coast in 2011, killing nearly 20,000 people and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

The tsunamis that did roll in along the Sea of Japan, on Japan's western coast, were mostly just a few feet high, rather than waves up to 5 meters (15 feet) tall predicted in alerts issued just after the magnitude 7.6 quake struck on Monday afternoon.

But the alarms and evacuation orders, and the dozens of strong quakes that came before and after the main quake on Monday, summoned memories of the triple disasters nearly 13 years ago. ,

As of Wednesday morning, local officials said 62 people were confirmed killed in the quake that struck on the coast of the remote Noto peninsula, 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) northwest of Tokyo.

Searchers were combing through rubble, a task lent urgency by forecasts for heavy rain that could trigger more landslides and collapses, racing against the clock to find survivors. Some were buried in landslides or trapped in houses whose roofs collapsed. Firefighters were using power saws to access people trapped in a small, 7-floor apartment building that fell sideways off its foundation.

“Hardly any homes are standing. They're either partially or totally destroyed,” said Masuhiro Izumiya, the mayor of Suzu city, which suffered heavy damage.

Two days after the quake, a man watched silently, wiping his eyes with a towel, as rescuers pulled his wife's body from beneath their collapsed home.

The quake struck on the one day of the year that nearly all Japanese take off: The New Year holiday is the country’s biggest festival, when families gather to sit in heated “kotatsu” tables, eat “osechi” delicacies and rice cakes, and just take it easy.

The calm was vanquished by TV announcers who urgently and repeatedly warned people in areas that might be flooded to seek higher ground, without delay.

Tens of thousands of people living in areas near where the quake struck sought shelter in government buildings and schools as authorities warned against returning to buildings possibly weakened by dozens of strong aftershocks.

Others lined up patiently to get drinking water from tanker trucks sent in to help tide residents over until broken pipes could be fixed.

“It’s flattened (my house) so we can't get inside. So I'm here with my wife sleeping together in a huddle while talking to others and encouraging each other. That’s the situation now.” said Yasuo Kobatake, who was visiting his hometown in Suzu when quake occurred.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other officials sternly warned against posting misleading or “malicious” information online after some people posted videos of the gigantic 2011 tsunami as if it was from Monday’s quake.

The disaster was an inauspicious start for 2024. According to Asian astrology, it's a Dragon Year that usually would bring good luck and prosperity. So far, it's brought a quake on Monday and a fiery landing of a Japan Airlines plane in Tokyo on Tuesday after a Japan Airlines flight from the northern island of Hokkaido crashed into a smaller Japan Coast Guard aircraft on the runway. All 379 passengers and crew of the JAL plane escaped. Five people perished on the smaller plane, which had been preparing to deliver relief supplies for quake victims.

The holiday's celebrations turned somber: Kishida postponed plans for a ceremonial New Year visit to the Ise Shrine. Public visits to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo for New Year greetings by the Imperial family were canceled as Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako conveyed their sympathies to victims of the disaster.

The damage is much smaller in scale than in 2011, but still catastrophic.

The Noto area is renowned for old, picturesque wooden-frame homes and shops, often with heavy tile roofs that experts say are most vulnerable to the kind of violent shaking seen in Monday's quake. Most, but not all, of Japan's modern buildings are built to stronger, quake-resistant specifications, usually using reinforced concrete that tends to hold up well.

Much of the damage from Monday's quake to more modern buildings appears to have resulted from landslides and subsidence, which severely damaged homes even 100 kilometers (60 miles) away in Kanazawa, the closest larger city.

Landslides and road collapses left some isolated communities cut off: Residents in Suzu used folding chairs, benches and other things to spell out SOS in a parking lot — much as some distressed quake and tsunami survivors did in 2011.

The 2011 triple disasters along Japan's northeastern coast began with a magnitude 9 earthquake offshore that was more than 125 times more powerful than this week's quake in terms of the total energy it released, according to an online calculating tool of the US Geological Survey. It unleashed tsunami with waves up to 40 meters (131 feet) high that pounded into the coast, across sea walls and up river valleys, wiping out entire communities in low-lying areas.

It also triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that led to massive evacuations along the coast due to worries over radiation escaping from the disabled plant that have kept thousands from moving back.

The operator of the nuclear power plant closest to the epicenter of Monday's quake, in Shika, said there were minor problems and damage, but nothing that would cause radiation leaks from the facility, where reactors were idled for safety checks.

Hokuriku Power apologized for quake-related power outages that affected 33,200 homes in the area — some of those who sought refuge said they were too cold without any heating due to the blackouts, with temperatures dipping near freezing overnight.

Further north, at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata prefecture, the world's largest atomic power plant by power capacity, the quake caused water to spill from fuel pools of two reactors. Its operator Tokyo Electric Power, which also is responsible for the wrecked Fukushima plant, said there was no damage or leaks.

TEPCO recently gained permission to restart the Niigata facility, which had been partially shut down at the time of the 2011 quake and has been undergoing safety improvements since that disaster, which did not affect it.



Iran Talks Tough and Launches Missile All While Seeking a New Nuclear Deal with the US

Iran's and US' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran's and US' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Iran Talks Tough and Launches Missile All While Seeking a New Nuclear Deal with the US

Iran's and US' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran's and US' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Iran is talking tough — while still wanting to talk more with the United States over a possible nuclear deal.

In the last days, Tehran has backed an attack by Yemen's Houthi militants that slipped through Israel's missile defenses to strike near Ben-Gurion International Airport. It aired footage of its own ballistic missile test while defense minister called out threats by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth against Iran. And an organization linked to its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard unveiled a new mural with a map of Israel overlaid by possible missile targets in the shape of a Yemeni jambiyya, an ornamental dagger worn by Yemeni men.

But all the while, Iran maintains it wants to reach a nuclear deal with the US after talks scheduled to take place last weekend in Rome didn't happen. That's even as Trump administration officials continue to insist that Tehran must give up all its ability to enrich uranium in order to receive sanction relief — something Iran repeatedly has said is a nonstarter for the negotiations.

Israel-Hamas war changes equation for Iran

All this together can feel contradictory. But this is the position where Iran now finds itself after having been ascendant in the Mideast with its self-described “Axis of Resistance,” countries and militant groups finding common cause against Israel and the US.

That changed with the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage back to the Gaza Strip. Israel launched a devastating war on Hamas in Gaza that rages on even today — and may be further escalating after Israel approved plans Monday to capture the entire Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified amount of time. Israel’s war has killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians in their count.

In the course of the war, Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militants have been beaten back by Israeli attacks. Syrian President Bashar Assad, long backed by Iran, saw his family's over 50-year rule end in December as opposition factions swept the country.

That's left Iran with just Yemen's Houthi militants, though they too now face an intensified campaign of strikes by the Trump administration.

Iran carefully applauds Houthi strike on Israel

The strike Sunday on Ben-Gurion repeatedly earned highlights in Iranian state media. However, Iran's Foreign Ministry made a point to insist that the attack had “been an independent decision” by the group.

Expert opinion varies on just how much influence Iran wields over the Houthis. However, Tehran has been instrumental in arming the Houthis over Yemen's decadelong war in spite of a United Nations arms embargo.

“The Yemeni people, out of their human feelings and religious solidarity with the Palestinians, and also to defend themselves in the face of continuous aggression by America, have taken some measures," Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Monday.

Meanwhile, Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh called out comments by his American counterpart who had warned that Iran would “pay the CONSEQUENCE” for arming the Houthis with weapons.

“I advise the American threatening officials, especially the newcomer defense minister of the country, to read the history of Iran in the recent four decades," the general said. "If they read, they will notice that they should not speak to Iran using the language of threats.”

Iran has not, however, responded to Israeli airstrikes targeting its air defenses and ballistic missile program in October.

Nuclear deal remains a top Iranian priority

But getting to a new nuclear deal with the US, which could see Tehran limit its enrichment and stockpile of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, remains a priority for Iran. Its troubled rial currency, once over 1 million to $1, has strengthened dramatically on just the talks alone to 840,000 to $1.

The two sides still appear a long way from any deal, however, even as time ticks away. Iranian media broadly described a two-month deadline imposed by President Donald Trump in his initial letter sent to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Trump said he wrote the letter on March 5.

Meanwhile, the US campaign on Yemen and Israel's escalation in Gaza continues to squeeze Tehran.

That's on top of American officials including Trump threatening sanctions on anyone who buys Iranian crude oil, as well as following a new, harder line saying Iran shouldn't be able to enrich uranium at all. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who strongly encouraged Trump to unilaterally withdraw American in 2018 from Iran's nuclear deal with world powers, also has been pushing for the same.

Iran likely has been trying to get messages to America despite last weekend's planned talks in Rome being postponed. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flew to Islamabad to meet his Pakistani counterpart, Ishaq Dar. A readout from Pakistan's Foreign Ministry acknowledged the men discussed the nuclear negotiations.

Araghchi got a colder reception from Kaja Kallas, the foreign policy chief of the European Union. While European nations have had warmer ties to Iran in the past, Tehran's arming of Russia in its war on Ukraine has angered many in the EU.

I called on Iran to stop military support to Russia and raised concerns over detained EU citizens and human rights," Kallas wrote Monday on the social platform X. “EU-Iran ties hinge on progress in all areas.”