Is There a Nuke Plant in a Quake Zone Near You?

A staggering one-fifth of the world's nuclear power stations sit on potentially shaky ground in earthquake zones, raising the specter that what's happening in Japan could come to a community near you.

Two of the world's biggest nuclear plants located in seismically active areas are in California: the San Onofre plant near San Diego and Diablo Canyon near San Luis Obispo. They're among 88 of the world's 442 nuclear power stations built in earthquake zones, according to the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency.

The most active quake zones in the U.S. are California's San Andreas Fault and the New Madrid seismic zone in Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee -- potentially imperiling nuclear power stations in all those states.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has also determined America's top 10 nuclear sites at risk of quake damage. No. 1 is the Indian Point plant about 30 miles north of New York City, which supplies a quarter of the Big Apple's electricity. The chance of core damage from an earthquake there is 1 in 10,000 each year, according to NRC figures excerpted by MSNBC.

The rest of the top five:

2. Pilgrim 1, Plymouth, Mass.
3. Limerick 1 and 2, Limerick, Pa.
4. Sequoyah 1 and 2, Soddy-Daisy, Tenn.
5. Beaver Valley 1, Shippingport, Pa.

Virginia and Florida also have risky sites.

City councils across America have mandated increased safety checks at local nuclear power plants in the wake of Japan's nuclear crisis. On Wednesday, organizers called off an ill-timed media tour of the only U.S. nuclear reactor under construction, in Watts Bar, Tenn., to allow workers to "focus on events in Japan," a local newspaper, the Chattanooga Times Free Press, reported.

President Barack Obama has announced ambitious plans to revamp the U.S. energy system with more low-emission nuclear plants, to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions that are harmful to the climate and wean the U.S. off foreign oil. But those plans could be dealt a setback by what's happening in Japan, as people begin to wonder about whether the risks of nuclear power are worth the benefits.

"The Japan thing, it really makes you think twice about having the reactor in your own backyard," Kayla Hoteling, who lives near Missouri's Callaway County Nuclear Plant, told her local KSDK TV station.

Most U.S. nuclear power stations are designed to survive a 6.0- or 7.0-magnitude earthquake intact. But Japan's massive quake last Friday hit a magnitude of 9.0, triggering a tsunami that splashed over sea walls and knocked out operations at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant on the country's northeast coast. Backup generators were also destroyed, ruining the plant's ability to cool its reactors.

In Japan, scientists have long warned about the precarious position of the country's nuclear plants.

"Of all the places in all the world where no one in their right mind would build scores of nuclear power plants, Japan would be pretty near the top of the list," Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who worked at California's Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, warned in a 2004 op-ed in The Japan Times. "There is almost no geologic setting in the world more dangerous for nuclear power than Japan -- the third-ranked country in the world for nuclear reactors."

The top two nuclear-powered countries are the United States and France. The U.S. gets about 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.

Moret quoted Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist and professor at Japan's Kobe University, as describing the idea of building a nuclear station on a seismic fault as extremely dangerous.

"It's like a kamikaze terrorist wrapped in bombs just waiting to explode," Ishibashi said.

The world may be changing its tune when it comes to the wisdom of nuclear power -- at least in earthquake-prone areas. China suspended approval for new nuclear power stations today and said it'll carry out checks on existing plants and those under construction. Forty percent of the total number of nuclear power stations being built around the world are in China, which needs to fuel its escalating energy needs.

Earlier this week, Germany and Switzerland both said they'll reassess nuclear safety and possibly reduce their reliance on nuclear power, closing their oldest plants. Spain also announced a review of all six of its nuclear stations.