The question that arises out of the Japanese situation ... is what happens when the actual earthquake exceeds the predicted risk. It's become clear that the Fukushima reactors were not built to withstand a 9.0-magnitude quake, but rather were built on the expectation that a 7.9 was the maximum the plant would experience. The paper also touts Tokyo Electric Power Company's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power station as a case study in success, noting that it withstood a 2007 earthquake that was about three times stronger than it was designed to.This is one of those one-in-a-million situations that humans are rarely fully prepared for. It's certainly possible that they will be able to contain this and that everything will go perfectly from here on in. We hope more than anything that it will. But it's not being foolish or hysterical to be concerned about this. We are dealing with an unusual and difficult confluence of events.But the paper also states, rather importantly, that "the Richter scale alone does not capture the dangers or risks posed by specific quakes." This seems to be the real problem in Japan. The emergency situations affecting at least four nuclear power plants in the country seem to be more related to the their ability to withstand multiple disasters—an earthquake, tsunami, and the failure of both primary and back-up power—not just an earthquake alone.
.
"While the authorities continue playing down the possibility of a breach of the primary containment at these reactors, I remain concerned."