Amid growing dissatisfaction with the slow pace of recovery, Japan marked the second anniversary Monday of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that left nearly 19,000 people dead or missing and has displaced more than 300,000.

Unless Oregon gets better prepared, an inevitable magnitude 9.0 earthquake off its coast could kill thousands of residents and cause more than $30 billion in damage to the economy, a state earthquake commission says.

A small amount of seismic activity was recorded on Friday afternoon about 15 miles north of Eugene, the US Geological Survey said.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. wants to use big air guns to emit strong sound waves to make three-dimensional maps of fault zones, but biologists say the project is likely to have "unavoidable adverse effects" on marine life and the environment.

The mutations are the first evidence that the radiation has caused genetic changes in living organisms.

The Coos Bay, Ore. region is in danger of a major earthquake in the next 50 years, scientists at Oregon State University said.

Six earthquakes between magnitude 1.6 and 2.1 rumbled under the ocean less than 20 miles off the Oregon Coast in the last week, according to U.S. Geologic Survey records.

The Japanese operator of the nuclear power plant devastated in last year's disasters received a 1 trillion yen ($12.8 billion) bailout Tuesday, putting it under government ownership, while international experts visited another plant that survived the tsunami's impact.