Japan Earthquake 2011

What? - An earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale struck off Japan's north-east coast, about 250 miles from Tokyo at the depth of 20 miles

When?- The magnitude 9.0 earthquake happened at 2:46pm on Friday March 11th 2011

Where? - The earthquake occured 250 miles from off the North-East coast on Japans main Island Honshu

Why? - Japan is located on the eastern edge of the Eurasian plate. The Pacific plate, which is an oceanic plate, subducst (sinks under) the Eurasian plate, which is a continential plate, to the East of Japan. This type of plate margin is known as a destrcutive plate margin. The friction caused the Pacific plate to stick. Pressure builds and is released as an earthquake.

• 15,400 people died
• 144,000 buildings were destroyed
• Gas, electricity,and water supplys were damaged
• Communication links and road networks were destroyed
• The dam north of Fukishma burst its banks and many homes were destroyed
• A cruise ship carrying 100 people got swept away
• 2 million were made homeless, mainly to do with the Tsunami that followed  

• Nuclear power plant in Fukishma leaked radioactive waste due to failure in cooling system due to no electricity. The level of radioactivity was 40,000 times the normal level
• Broken gas supplies meant that there were wide spread fires
• Damaged water and electricty supplies meant that people had no access to clean water and food began to turn poisonous
• This resulted in diseases like Chloera and Typhoid began to pread easily