Recently a city in Japan, Hokkaido,  experienced a 6.6 magnitude earthquake on September 9. Nine Hokkaido natives were killed in the quake, over 300 were injured, and thirty are still unaccounted for.

The city of Hokkaido is known for its 20 volcanoes. There have been over 130 earthquakes in Hokkaido in the last year alone, many of these are small earthquakes that don’t have much effect.

It is an issue the people from Hokkaido have had for a long time. There have been a few more earthquakes of 6.5 and similar magnitudes in the last few days. This is not promising for Hokkaido, showing that things could get worse for them.

When it’s realized that the tectonic plates are constantly being shifted because of magma movement, and because of the volcanoes being near and/or on the tectonic plates. This is what is causing all of the earthquakes that Hokkaido experiencing The average number of earthquakes in Japan, in total, is 1,500 a year. It comes out to Hokkaido being responsible for 11.5 of those earthquakes daily.

This is a threatening number for Hokkaido, especially because earthquakes can trigger each other.

For example, the first earthquake struck and then a second 6.5 earthquake came the next day. Several people were interviewed, Sophomore Talitha Johnson commented,“It’s terrible to see what they’ve been through, and that it’s unfortunate for them to have to go through that.”

Johnson also said “Building on the fault line was a bad idea, especially since there are so many volcanoes near them.” This is a troubling time for the citizens of Hokkaido, considering how many people were injured and killed.

https://www.earthquaketrack.com/p/japan/hokkaido/recent

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/how-are-volcanoes-and-earthquakes-related