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Tokyo faces the possibility of being hit by a massive earthquake within the next four years, according to Japanese researchers. The University of Tokyo’s Earthquake Research Institute predicts there is a 70% probability that the capital’s metropolitan area will experience a magnitude-7 quake within four years and a 98% probability within the next 30 years.

Nearly one year ago, a magnitude 9.0 quake struck off Japan’s central Pacific coast, triggering a devastating tsunami and aftershocks that left more than 15,700 dead, according to a government report in December on Japan’s recovery from the catastrophe. About 4,500 were listed as missing.

There’s nothing like an earthquake to ring in the New Year. That thought crossed the minds of many Tokyoites on Jan. 1 as a magnitude 7.0 trembler shook us out of our holiday slumber.

Really, if there’s any developed nation that was glad to see 2011 end, it was Japan. The radiation crisis caused by the March earthquake and tsunami was but the biggest news in a year that included deepening deflation, credit downgrades, the resignation of a fifth prime minister in as many years and an Olympus Corp. scandal that spooked investors the world over.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s plan to double the sales tax by the middle of the decade suffered another setback on Tuesday as lawmakers bolted from his ruling party in protest over the proposed rate increase to 10%. More >

Nexon Co., a creator of games for Facebook Inc., fell on its first day of trading after holding Japan’s biggest initial share sale this year as investors worried that the social-gaming market may be saturating. The developer of titles including “Zombie Misfits” declined 2.3 percent to 1,270 yen at the close in Tokyo trading. The stock debuted at 1,307 yen, compared with its IPO price of 1,300 yen.

“The opening price was 7 yen higher than the offer price; I was relieved to be honest,” President Seung-woo Choi told reporters in Tokyo. “The Japanese market is stable. That’s one of the reasons we chose Japan” for the listing, he said.

Traces of radioactive cesium thought to be from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been detected in Japanese baby formula as concerns about food safety continue.

Meiji, the Tokyo company that makes the formula, announced the recall of 400,000 cans of it as a precaution but said the levels of cesium detected were well below the government’s safety limits. Tests found a combined 30.8 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 134 and cesium 137, the company said, compared with the government limit of 200.

Tokyo Electric Power Co is likely to give up its plan to build the first reactor at its Higashidori nuclear plant in northern Japan, due to financial difficulties as it compensates those affected by the radiation crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Thursday.

The company began work in January on construction of the 1,385-megawatt No.1 unit at the plant, which was due to start operations in March 2017. The work has been halted following the radiation crisis, however.

Nuclear workers at the crippled Fukushima power plant raced to inject boric acid into the plant’s No. 2 reactor early Wednesday after telltale radioactive elements were detected there, and the plant’s owner admitted for the first time that fuel deep inside three stricken plants was probably continuing to experience bursts of fission.

Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501.T), operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is likely to announce its earnings for April-September on November 14, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the utility, known as Tepco, denied it has set a date for the announcement, however.

The firm is preparing a business plan that must win government approval by early November so that a bailout body, funded by public money and contributions from nuclear operators, will provide unlimited funds to help compensate those affected by the ongoing radiation crisis in Fukushima.

STRONTIUM 90, a highly dangerous radioactive isotope, has reportedly been found atop an apartment building in Yokohama, fuelling fears that fallout from the Fukushima disaster has affected the greater Tokyo area. Yokohama, a city of 3.6 million people, effectively adjoins the Japanese capital, and sits about 250km from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.

City officials announced private tests done by an agency hired by a resident had found a concentration of 195 becquerels per kilogram of strontium in sediment on top of the apartment building. Both the Yokohama government and the Japanese government are conducting their own tests to verify the findings.