Supermoon?

Humans seem intent on making more and more destructive weapons but as the events in Japan have shown, nothing we have come up with yet can match nature at its awesome worst.
One report i read put the energy in the 8.9 earthquake as equivalent to 336 megatons or 336 million tons of TNT.
Whereas floods, extreme weather and droughts can arguably be placed at the doorstep of us humans, earthquakes and volcanoes are acts of nature and unfortunately there is nothing we can do about them, just be prepared for when they do rear up.
One explanation for the quick succession of earthquakes in New Zealand and now in Japan is the arrival of next Saturdays Supermoon when the moon is at its closest point to Earth.
True that the moon influences the tides and can even change peoples behaviour, the police increase patrols on nights where there is a full moon, so when the moon is closest, it make sense that it's effect is stronger, but can it actually influence the earths crust?
The last time the moon got this close was on January 10, 2005 around the time of the devastating 9.0 Indonesian earthquake.
John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Washington and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, states 'Both the moon and sun do stress the Earth a tiny bit, and when we look hard we can see a very small increase in tectonic activity when they're aligned. At times of full and new moons, you see a less-than-1-percent increase in earthquake activity, and a slightly higher response in volcanoes.'
Personally, i put the harrowing scenes from Japan on our televisions due to the country sitting on the Pacific 'Ring of Fire', one of the world's most active areas for earthquakes and less to do with the moons orbit.
Nobody to blame and your heart goes out to the victims although you can't help wondering about the decision to build nuclear reactors right on the coast of a country prone to major earthquakes and tsunamis.