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"2011 Miyagi earthquake" redirects here. For the aftershock that occurred on 7 April, see April 2011 Miyagi earthquake.
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
An aerial view of tsunami damage in Tōhoku
Smoke from the Sendai Nippon Oil refinery
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami is located in Japan2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunamiTokyoTokyoSendaiSendai
UTC time 2011-03-11 05:46:24
ISC event 16461282
USGS-ANSS ComCat
Local date March 11, 2011
Local time 14:46 JST
Duration 6 minutes
Magnitude 9.0–9.1 (Mw)
Depth 29 km (18 mi)
Epicenter 38.322°N 142.369°ECoordinates: 38.322°N 142.369°E
Type Megathrust
Areas affected Japan (shaking, tsunami)
Pacific Rim (tsunami)
Total damage $360 billion USD
Max. intensity IX (Violent)
Peak acceleration 2.99 g
Peak velocity 117.41 cm/s
Tsunami Up to 40.5 m (133 ft)
in Miyako, Iwate, Tōhoku
Landslides Yes
Foreshocks List of foreshocks and aftershocks of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake
Aftershocks 13,386 (as of 6 March 2018)[1]
Casualties 15,897 deaths,[2] +2 (Overseas),
6,157 injured,[3]
2,533 people missing[4]
Citations [5][6][7][8][9][10]
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku (東北地方太平洋沖地震 Tōhoku-chihō Taiheiyō Oki Jishin) was a magnitude 9.0–9.1 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on Friday 11 March 2011,[5][11][12] with the epicentre approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and the hypocenter at an underwater depth of approximately 29 km (18 mi).[5][13] The earthquake is often referred to in Japan as the Great East Japan Earthquake (東日本大震災 Higashi nihon daishinsai)[14][15][fn 1] and is also known as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake,[30] the Great Sendai Earthquake,[31] the Great Tōhoku Earthquake,[31] and the 3.11 earthquake.
Explanation:
Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011, also called the Great Sendai Earthquake or Great Tōhoku Earthquake, a severe natural disaster that occurred in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011. The event began with a powerful earthquake off the northeastern coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, which caused widespread damage on land and initiated a series of large tsunami waves that devastated many coastal areas of the country, most notably in the Tōhoku region (northeastern Honshu). The tsunami also instigated a major nuclear accident at a power station along the coast.
The magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck at 2:46 PM. (The early estimate of magnitude 8.9 was later revised upward.) The epicentre was located some 80 miles (130 km) east of the city of Sendai, Miyagi prefecture, and the focus occurred at a depth of 18.6 miles (about 30 km) below the floor of the western Pacific Ocean. The earthquake was caused by the rupture of a stretch of the subduction zone associated with the Japan Trench, which separates the Eurasian Plate from the subducting Pacific Plate. (Some geologists argue that this portion of the Eurasian Plate is actually a fragment of the North American Plate called the Okhotsk microplate.) A part of the subduction zone measuring approximately 190 miles (300 km) long by 95 miles (150 km) wide lurched as much as 164 feet (50 metres) to the east-southeast and thrust upward about 33 feet (10 metres). The March 11 temblor was felt as far away as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia; Kao-hsiung, Taiwan; and Beijing, China. It was preceded by several foreshocks, including a magnitude-7.2 event centred approximately 25 miles (40 km) away from the epicentre of the main quake. Hundreds of aftershocks, dozens of magnitude 6.0 or greater and two of magnitude 7.0 or greater, followed in the days and weeks after the main quake. (Nearly two years later, on December 7, 2012, a magnitude-7.3 tremor originated from the same plate boundary region. The quake caused no injuries and little damage.) March 11, 2011, earthquake was the strongest to strike the region since the beginning of record keeping in the late 19th century, and it is considered one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded. It was later reported that a satellite orbiting at the outer edge of Earth’s atmosphere that day had detected infrasonics (very low-frequency sound waves) from the quake.