Jakarta, Apr 19 (AP) The skeleton of what will soon be one of the world's biggest nuclear plants is slowly taking shape along China's southeastern coast, right on the doorstep of Hong Kong's bustling metropolis. Three other facilities nearby are up and running or under construction.
Like Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant they lie within a few hundred miles (kilometers) of the type of fault known to unleash the largest tsunami-spawning earthquakes.
Called subduction zones, these happen when one tectonic plate is lodged beneath another. And because the so-called Manila Trench hasn't been the source of a huge quake in at least 440 years, some experts say tremendous stresses are building, increasing the chances of a major rupture.
Should that happen, the four plants in southern China, and a fifth perched on Taiwan's southern tip, could be in the path of a towering wave like the one that struck Fukushima.