Tokyo, December 30 (IANS): The number of noticeable earthquakes that struck Japan in 2016 exceeded 6,500, three times more than in the previous year, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Friday. As of 7 p.m. on Thursday, a total of 6,566 quakes with an intensity measured on the Japanese seismic scale hit the archipelago, up from 1,842 in 2015. More than 10,000 earthquakes struck the country in 2011, most of them aftershocks from the devastating earthquake that triggered the tsunami which led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the worst since Chernobyl. Although the number of quakes has decreased considerably since then, the Japanese agency said the increase this year could be attributed to the powerful earthquakes that struck the Kumamoto prefecture in the southern island of Kyushu in April.
