A strong earthquake has hit northwestern Japan, killing at least seven people and causing a small radiation leak at a nuclear power plant.

A strong earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale jolted northwestern Japan on early Monday killing three people and causing widespread flood.

Many earthquakes in the deep ocean are much smaller in magnitude than expected. Geophysicists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found new evidence that the fragmented structure of seafloor faults, along with previously unrecognized volcanic activity, may be dampening the effects of these quakes.

Somewhere in Southern California a large earthquake strikes without warning, and the news media and the public clamor for information about the temblor - Where was the epicenter? How large was the quake? What areas did it impact?

Three and half years after a massive earthquake killed more than 26,000 people in the ancient city of Bam, Iran, a regional centre to reduce the damage from such seismic threats was launched in the country today by the Government and the United Nations unit focussed on disaster mitigation.

When emergency teams are well informed and governments can coordinate their efforts, lives and property can be saved. The Health Early Warning System, a project supported by ESA, is intended to bring this benefit to Europe.

An earthquake engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has successfully performed the first test of wireless sensors in the simulated structural control of a model laboratory building.

The subduction zones where oceanic plates sink beneath the continents produce volcanic arcs such as those that make up the "rim of fire" around the Pacific Ocean. The volcanoes are fed by molten rock rising within a wedge of the Earth's mantle above the subducting plate.

Scientists have reported what is thought to be one of the world's greatest mass death of corals ever recorded as a result of the earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia on 28 March 2005.

Two of the world's worst natural disasters in recent years stemmed from different causes on opposite sides of the globe, but actually had much in common, according to researchers who are part of a large National Science Foundation-funded research initiative that has been studying both the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 and the Hurricane Katrina of 2005.

Scientists using NASA satellite data have found strong evidence that a major earthquake can lead to a nearly immediate increase in regional volcanic activity.

Two moderate earthquakes shook the same region of central Greece early Tuesday, although neither caused serious damage or injuries, the Athens Geodynamic Institute said.