Exercise IOWave11 re-enacted the 26 December 2004 earthquake event, with a 9.2 magnitude earthquake off the North West coast of Sumatra (Indonesia), followed by an ocean-wide tsunami.

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The exercise will go a long way in helping us be prepared in the event of a major earthquake.

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Damage due to an unforeseeable sudden event--fire, flood, earthquake, even vandalism.

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And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it is not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days.

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The answer is yes -- each one of them is designed to withstand an earthquake, without releasing any radioactive materials at all, up to the maximum projected seismic event at that plant, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group in Washington.

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Dr Melnick explained that to predict an earthquake's magnitude, seismologists multiply plate convergence rate by the number of years since the last great event.

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