Earthquake Outweighs China in U.S. Navy's Decision to Close Docks

[Tony]

Submarine maintenance put on hold as seismic concerns are addressed

TOKYO -- The samurai, merchants and villagers living on Japan's east coast were puzzled on one January day in 1700 when a tsunami hit their towns. There was no associated earthquake in Japan that seemed to have triggered the devastating waves.

History books recorded the incident as the "orphan tsunami."

It wasn't until 300 years later, in the 1990s, that the orphan tsunami was linked to its parent: a magnitude-9.0 earthquake that hit the U.S. Pacific Northwest on Jan. 26, 1700, some 8,000 kilometers away.