Two strong earthquakes jolt Fukushima Prefecture -- again

The A.P. reports that in the past day, two tremors, measuring 6.4 and 6.2 on the Richter scale, has struck northeastern Japan just off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture. Previous such aftershocks from the March 11th 9.0 quake, which spawned the tsunami that plunged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into catastrophic station blackout, have forced the evacuation of emergency workers from cooling operations on the three melted down reactor cores, as well as the ever boiling storage pools holding high-level radioactive waste. Previous aftershocks have also temporarily disrupted the electricity suppy to run the cooling systems. Another major concern is the weight of the water being used to cool the melted cores -- such aftershocks could be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of even more catastrophic failure of the melted cores and their damaged primary containment structures. The same can be said of the pools containing high-level radioactive wastes -- Unit 4's pool is especially at risk of collapse after severe damage caused by a massive hydrogen explosion in the early days of the catastrophe.