Experts warn worst-case tsunami could top 34 meters
National Apr. 01, 2012 - 05:25PM JST
TOKYO —
A 34-meter tsunami could hit the Japanese coast in the wake of a massive earthquake, an expert panel said after revising its worst case scenario projections following last year’s disaster.
If a 9.0-magnitude quake struck in the Nankai Trough off central to western Japan, huge swathes of the Pacific coastline could be inundated, with 20-meter-plus waves hitting areas from Tokyo down to the southwestern island of Kyushu.
At the town of Kuroshio in southwestern Kochi Prefecture, the tsunami could reach 34.4 meters—the highest level projected under the scenario, the Cabinet Office panel said late Saturday.
And at the now offline Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Shizuoka Prefecture, the tsunami could be as high as 21 meters, breaching the 18-metre breakwater that operators are currently constructing, the panel said.
In its previous projection in 2003 the panel gave a worst case scenario in which no areas would be hit by a tsunami of more than 20 meters......
Nankai Trough:
