How come these earth-moving quakes haven't caused any nukes to blow?

[Deja Q]

China has nukes.

India has nukes.

All sorts of countries in Asia have nukes.

7.0, 9.0, 9.2, oh my. That's heavy shit, man.

The tectonic plate shifted 100 feet.

Another one moved a centimetre. (which is still pretty far given the concept of relativity.)

Yet no nukes have gone a'poppin'.

Can anybody 'splain why?

[samwisefoxburr]

1. I don't know much about nukes, but...

...I think even if you blow up a nuke with dynamite it wouldn't go nuclear. It has to use the internal mechanics to blow, I could be wrong, though.

[tridim]

2. You're correct, my dad used to work on safety triggers

He told me a train carrying a nuke could slam full speed into a concrete wall and the nuke wouldn't go off.

[SnoopDog]

3. Do you remember pictures of the development of nuks?

I am not an expert but...

It was a sphere of precisely placed explosives surrounding a nuclear core. The implosion is what sets of the nuk. I beleive an earthquake could not provide the specific implosion.

[Deja Q]

4. Thank goodness! (thanks all for replying!) ...

It's highly tragic now, but if nukes did go off... :scared: for once, the designers got their sums right and the economists for once said "Go ahead, spend some more money to ensure they're safe. People are important too.".)

[jody]

5. An earthquake would not cause a nuclear weapon to detonate. n/t

[Kazak]

6. Or maybe it was caused by nukes? Nah...

I did think it rather strange that it happened right around the time that a nuke was being rumored to be planned, but I'm not quite wacky enough to assert that...just noting the coincidence.

[two gun sid]

7. Nukes are not settin' there ready to go

that would be too dangerous. There is a procedure that is used to arm the warheads. That doesn't mean that they are not dangerous though. A break in the casing could cause radioactive material to leak out. People who work around nukes wear dosimeters that are read every time they leave the space the nukes are stored and the space itself has equipment that monitors the radiation level.
A nuke could be damaged by an earthquake but it won't explode. If one was damaged I doubt that we'd hear about it. No military I know of would be willing to admit that, no matter what devastation it caused.

[illflem]

8. If by nuke you mean nuclear power plant

they were concerned enough in Sri Lanka to shut the one down there right after the quake. It was never threatened. Even if a power plant was hit by a tsunami it wouldn't go nuclear but radioactive waste stored outside could be spread all over the place.

[librechik]

9. I'm more worried about nuclear power plants or storage facilities

which could be disturbed by an earthquake