Tohoku 2011

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Tohoku 2011

Causes

  • The 2011 Tohoku earthquake struck offshore of Japan, along a subduction zone where two of Earth's tectonic plates collide. In a subduction zone, one plate slides beneath another into the mantle, the hotter layer beneath the crust. The great plates are rough and stick together, building up energy that is released as earthquakes.
  • East of Japan, the Pacific plate dives beneath the overriding Eurasian plate. The temblor completely released centuries of built up stress between the two tectonic plates, a recent study found.
  • Scientists drilled into the subduction zone soon after the earthquake and discovered a thin, slippery clay layer lining the fault. The researchers think that this clay layer allowed the two plates to slide an incredible distance, some 164 feet (50 meters), facilitating the enormous earthquake and tsunami.

Effects

  • 332,395 buildings, 2,126 roads, 56 bridges, and 26 railways were destroyed or damaged
  • 300 hospitals were damaged and 11 were left totally destroyed
  • Blackouts- roughly 4.4 million households in North-East Japan were left without electricity
  • As a result of 15 metre high Tsunami major nuclear disaster of Fukushima happened at the number 1 nuclear plant in the country. Second worst nuclear disaster ever after Chernobyl in 1986. The wave surged over the defences and flooded the reactors of which stimulated the major disaster. Authorities set up an exclusion zone which grew larger and larger as the radiation leaked from the plant, forcing more than 150,000 people to evacuate their homes/leave the area.

Overall summary

The Great Tohoku Earthquake hit Japan on March 11, 2011, at a high magnitude of 9.0 followed by a subsequent tsunami with waves up to about 40 meters high at the shore. Although the Japanese had an automated tsunami warning system alerting the people of coastal residents to evacuate to high ground, the nuclear accident that happened as a result of the tsunami increased the death toll and number of missing people. This triple catastrophe became one of Japan's most deadly natural hazards, in which survivors to this day are still struggling with the consequence of the disaster.

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