Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011

An earthquake occurred off the coast of the island of Honshu March 11, 2011

Measured approximately 9.0 on the Richter scale,

the epicentre was 60 km from the coast it was well out into the water

shallow focus at 25. KM deep

it lasted four minutes

occurred on a destructive plate boundary between the Pacific and Eurasian plates sub-ducts forming a deep ocean trench continental plate rebounded by 5 m to 8 m after being subjected to stress over 180 KM stretch.

Honshu moved eastwards by 2.4 meters. Sudden rebound caused a tsunami.

Tsunami is a series of large waves up to 100 km across and can travel up to speed of 1000 km/h.

The Japanese tsunami was between four meters and 10 meters in height

surged in Land for several kilometres

Sendai was the first town it only got 10 minutes of warning of the incoming tsunami

human error played a huge part in the devastation.

Authorities underestimated its structure capabilities and so did not warn to evacuate people accordingly many people who were evacuated did not move far enough as they believed it was going to be small.

Short term effect

  1. 25,000 declared dead or missing

  2. Nuclear power plants, e.g. Fukushima were shut down as Powercuts forced cooling systems

  3. Widespread power codes affected domestic and business supplies also

  4. Whole towns were destroyed. Houses were washed away over 20,000 homes were affected in total.

  5. All infrastructure was destroyed

  6. More than half 1 million were evacuated

  7. Industry output destroyed

  8. Food shortages occurred

Long-term effects

  1. Cost over 220,000,000,000 to date figure still increasing

  2. Countries have rejected Japanese food and import the fear of radiation contamination

  3. Fukushima is still leaking today. This is problems for the health of nation and economy.