Japanese earthquake and tsunami. 1. Why is Japan so susceptible to earthquakes? Japan lies a couple hundred km from where tectonic plates are colliding at a convergent boundary, with one plate being dragged (subducted) beneath the other. These tectonic plates are very thick, ranging from 10km to 50km and are in movement with respect to each other. At Japan, they can move at rates of eight to nine centimetres (3.1 to 3.5 inches) each year. This may not seem a lot, but imagine moving two gargantuan pieces of the earth so they collide with each other, year after year, a few inches more every year. Why do earthquakes happen? 2. On Friday 11 March 2011 at 2.46pm (local time), at a point 32km below sea level, and about 129km (80 miles) east of Sendai Japan, there was a slip in part of the subduction zone. British Geological Society - Earthquake details, including videos, seismographs and maps 3.
Equivalent to the energy released in half a megaton nuclear bomb. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Warning people, so as to minimize loss of life. Japan 2011 Earthquake 1 - Overview - BBC World News America 11.03.2011. Japans tsunami how it happened documentary 2011. Japan earthquake and tsunami: list of impacts of disaster. More than 163,000 people were in shelters around the country following evacuation, the National Police Agency said. The government has set up an evacuation area around Tokyo Electric Power Co's quake-stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima 150 miles north of Tokyo, with a 12-mile radius. More than 70,000 people lived in the largely rural area within the zone. It is unclear how many of them have been evacuated, but most are believed to have left. Another 136,000 people were within a zone extending a further six miles in which residents are recommended to leave or stay indoors. A total of 164,059 households in the north were without electricity, Tohoku Electric Power Co said.
At least 170,000 households in eight prefectures were without running water, the Health Ministry said. At least 46,027 buildings have been destroyed, washed away or burnt down, the National Police Agency of Japan said. The government has estimated damage from the earthquake and tsunami at 16-25 trillion yen. JAPAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI: Immediate Response and Recovery Projects | Operation USA. On March 11, 2011 a 9.0 earthquake struck Japan. The most powerful recorded earthquake in Japan’s history struck 250 miles north-east of Tokyo—and generated a 10-metre-high tsunami that swept away everything in its path, triggered a Pacific-wide tsunami alert and raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe from damaged power plants. The Japanese National Police Agency confirmed 14,981 deaths, 5,279 injured and 9,880 people missing across eighteen prefectures, as well as over 125,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. The main tremor split highways, flattened buildings and ignited fires all over the northeastern Pacific coast.
The ensuing tsunami wiped out entire villages. As many as 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.5 million without water. Prime Minister Naoto Kan described it as the country’s worst crisis since World War II. Operation USA takes the intention of our donors seriously. Local partners include: Peace Winds Japan Second Harvest. March 2011: Japan hit by tsunami after massive earthquake. Japan earthquake may push up price of electronic goods | World news. The price of consumer electronic goods such as computers, mobile phones and DVDs could rise across the world due to shortage of electronic components from disaster-hit Japan, experts warn.
There are already signs of an increase in the price of memory chips and display panels for computers and game consoles due to problems at Japanese factories. "While there are few reports of actual damage at electronic production facilities, impacts on the transportation and power infrastructure will result in disruption of supply, resulting in rising prices. Components impacted will include NAND flash memory, DRAM, microcontrollers … and LCDs," said analysts in a report for market research firm IHS iSuppli.
The warnings came as the Bank of Japan pumped huge amounts of new money into the financial system to boost confidence, leading to a near 6% rise in the stock market's Nikkei index of top shares. But the uncertainty still hit markets elsewhere, with the FTSE 100 down 97 points to close at 5598. Japan tsunami and earthquake: video footage roundup | World news. First pictures from Sendai Early television pictures showed a wall of water that swept away everything in its path in Sendai. Buildings, vehicles and even fires were carried along by the force of the wave. Tsunami hits Kesennuma A single camera filmed more than six minutes of continuous footage of the tsunami rushing through Kesennuma, 300 miles north east of Tokyo in Miyagi prefecture, close to the epicentre of the earthquake, carrying with it cars and houses.
Woman cowers as earthquake strikes Another video of Sendai shows the effects of the earthquake on a smaller scale. Fires in Kesennuma The tsunami that swept through Kesennuma (see above) also led to one of the biggest fires that raged through Japan after the earthquake struck. Huge cracks appear in the ground This video taken by CNN reporter Brent Kooi shows cracks in the ground appearing and then widening, with water seeping out. Boats and cars tossed around Nuclear danger Rescued after two days Survivor from Miyagi Destruction at Miyagi. Is the tsunami too big to beat? | Bill McGuire | Opinion. It was chilling to see the aerial footage of the debris-laden tsunami sweeping across the flat, featureless landscape of eastern Honshu. Its staggering power has done untold damage to lives and property. Natural hazards, which I study, take on a wide variety of forms, all of which have the potential to cause mayhem on a biblical scale. Generally, though, their impact affects a single city or region.
But great underwater earthquakes are very different. When they are as big as the quake that struck off the northeast coast of Japan – at magnitude 8.9 the largest ever recorded there – and shallow, so that a large part of the energy released jolts the sea above, they are capable of transporting death and destruction to places far removed from the earthquake source. Just over six years ago, tsunamis transmitted the energy released in the Sumatran earthquake as far afield as Thailand, Sri Lanka and east Africa, killing tens of thousands too far away to have even felt the earth shake.
Industry in Japan grinds to a halt after quake and tsunami | World news. Industry in the world's third-largest economy all but ground to a halt following the earthquake, as manufacturers ranging from Toyota to Nissan, Sony, Fuji and brewers Kirin and Sapporo shut down their operations in Japan to assess damage and allow staff to check on their families. The quake is a shattering blow to Japan's already heavily indebted economy, which recently endured a downgrade in its credit rating.
Finance minister Yoshihiko Noda raised the prospect of an emergency budget to cope with reconstruction costs, but suggested that this would be hard to compile before the end of March. Global prices for oil, grain and natural gas are likely to rise as a result of damage to Japan's nuclear power stations, ports and infrastructure. Initial estimates put a figure of $10bn-$15bn (£6.2bn-£9.3bn) on the cost of the quake to insurers – which, if accurate, would rank the disaster among the 10 most costly of the last 30 years.
Japan's economy heads into freefall after earthquake and tsunami | World news. The full extent of the economic impact of Friday's earthquake and tsunami is becoming apparent , with hundreds of factories shut across Japan, warnings of rolling blackouts and predictions from economists that the disaster would push the country into recession. The Bank of Japan is preparing to pump billions of yen into the economy when it announces an emergency "quake budget" on Monday to prevent the disaster derailing the country's fragile economic recovery. Toyota and Nissan said they were halting production at all of their 20 factories. Toyota, the world's largest carmaker, evacuated workers from two plants in the worst affected regions and has not been able to reach the sites to inspect the damage.
The plants make up to 420,000 small cars each year, mostly for export. Two of Honda's three plants remain closed. Other manufacturers have also reported major damage to their factories, with Kirin Holdings, Fuji Heavy Industries, GlaxoSmithKline and Nestlé among those to halt operations. Japan struck by earthquake and tsunami - in pictures | World news. Fukushima power plant operator 'knew of need to protect against tsunami' | Environment. The operator of Japan’s ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was aware of the need to improve the facility’s defences against tsunami more than two years before the March 2011 disaster but failed to take action, according to an internal company document. The revelation casts doubt on claims by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) that it had done everything possible to protect the plant, which suffered a triple meltdown after being struck by a towering tsunami.
The nuclear accident, the world’s worst since Chernobyl 25 years earlier, caused massive radiation leaks and forced the evacuation of more than 150,000 people, most of whom have yet to return to their homes. Tepco executives agreed that building coastal defences to defend the plant against tsunami higher than those previously recorded in the region was “indispensable”, according to the document, which was discussed at a meeting at the plant in September 2008 – two and a half years before the disaster.
After the earthquake, a tsunami of death and destruction in Japan | World news. It was 2.46pm when the chandeliers began swinging wildly in Tokyo's parliament chamber. Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan, stared in growing panic as the tremors intensified. Outside, buildings swayed like giant metronomes, roads cracked apart and people screamed and ran for shelter. The biggest earthquake in the country's history had struck. In the minutes that followed, a series of 10-metre high tsunami waves peeled 80 miles across a calm Pacific ocean from the quake's epicentre to Japan's north east coast.
Their symmetry belied a raging power that left behind a boiling back wash. It was all captured in horrifying detail as TV channels broadcast the most vivid footage yet of the devastating power of a tsunami which was by turns heart-breaking and bewildering. The foaming white tsunami turned black on landfall as it bought death and destruction and crushed everything in its path. Up to 300 bodies were found in the coastal city of Sendai which bore the brunt of the waves. 2315 Oh no! Japan earthquake and tsunami: as it happened March 11. 23:38 The Independent newspaper is quoting reports of tens of thousands of people missing.
That's many times the official police estimates. 23:12 What appeared to be a relatively controllable problem at the Fukushima facility is starting to look more serious. Mark Hibbs, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said if the cooling systems were not repaired within 24 hours, the plant risked a “definite danger of a core meltdown", with the “ultimate worst-case” was a “Chernobyl scenario” with explosions destroying the reactor. 22:42 Second power plant at Fukushima starting to lose its cooling systems, according to Japanese officials. 22:10 Fukushima plant is still partly submerged in the floodwater. 22:03 Radiation at Fukushima nuclear power station rising to 1,000 times normal levels, according to unconfirmed reports. An oil refinery in Chiba, near Tokyo, burns after the earthquake 21:39 Experts say the No1 Reactor at the nuclear plant is 40 years old. Mrs Moe said: He said:
Satellite Photos Before and After of Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami - Universe Today. [/caption] Photos from the GeoEye satellite imaging company from before and after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan show sobering views from above of the disaster. Above is the town of Sendai, Japan after the quake, below is how it looked before catastrophe struck. Arahama, Japan before the disaster.
Satellite image courtesy of GeoEye. See more below. The Sendai Airport after the disaster. Satellite image courtesy of GeoEye. The Sendai Airport in August of 2010. Yuriage, Japan on March 12, 2011. Yuriage, Japan on April 4, 2010. Sendai, Japan on March 12, 2011. Sendai, Japan on April 4, 2010. Ishinomaki, Japan on March 12, 2011. Ishinomaki, Japan on April 4, 2010. Below is an images from the MODIS Rapid Response System, which is producing twice-daily images of Japan in response to the disaster.
At this level of detail, the flooding along the coastline is the most obvious sign of the destructive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11. Related Tsunami Pictures In "Earth" Japan's megaquake and killer tsunami: How did this happen? On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. local time, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake ruptured a 500-kilometer-long fault zone off the northeast coast of Japan. Its epicenter was 130 kilometers off Sendai, Honshu; it occurred at a relatively shallow depth of 32 kilometers. The temblor violently shook northeast Honshu for six minutes, and collapsed its coastline by one meter.
The thrusting moved Honshu about 2.4 meters eastward, and the seismic waves on the Pacific Ocean floor set off tsunami waves traveling at the speed of a jet plane (about 700 kilometers per hour). Waves 3 to 38 meters tall pounded Honshu’s coastline, destroying towns and villages and flooding areas up to 10 kilometers inland. Tsunami waves also swept across the Pacific, causing damage or disruptions in Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Casualties from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan may be 30,000. Japan earthquake: Tsunami leaves Sendai area devastated. As you enter the tsunami zone, there is nothing but devastation stretching away into the distance. It begins just a few miles from the skyscrapers of Sendai city. You can see the city's tower blocks nearby but, as you head towards the seashore, everything has been destroyed.
A vast swathe of land along the coast, perhaps a couple of miles deep, has been inundated. Field after field is flooded, the ditches along the roadside are full of cars swept away by the waves of water that poured through here, and debris from thousands of homes lies everywhere. In one flooded field alone I counted more than 50 cars. In another field is a green armchair, sitting incongruously in the middle of the water. In the distance, men in orange suits and waterproof boots try to cut through the roof of a collapsed house. The scene could almost be apocalyptic. The skies all along the coastline are buzzing with helicopters. But thousands are still missing, and it is hard to believe that anyone could have survived.
Japan quake: Loss and recovery in numbers. Twelve months after north-eastern Japan was shaken by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and inundated by tsunami waters, Lucy Rodgers looks at the scale of the disaster and how much progress the country has made towards recovery. The Great East Japan Earthquake and resulting tsunami that tore through the country's north-eastern coastal communities killed almost 16,000 people and destroyed the lives of thousands more. The double disaster, which in turn triggered a third crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant, may have been a year ago, but for many of those in the worst-affected areas life remains in a state of turmoil. In Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures whole communities were wiped out by the ferocious power of the tsunami. On top of the current known death toll, a further 3,000 people are still listed as missing. Even among those that survived, many were unable to return home.
Clean-up Consequently, the clean-up has been a mammoth task, even for a nation known for its preparedness. Tohoku Tsunami Strikes Sendai Japan 2011 New Footage. Road to Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 2011|Promotional Committee for the 2016 G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' Meeting, Sendai. TheSendaiEarthquakeanupdate. 5 Years Since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Japan Earthquake & Tsunami of 2011: Facts and Information. 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.