Fukushima Earthquake

The Fukushima Daiichi power station was affected on March 11, 2011, by an earthquake and tsunami. The next day, leakage of radioactive materials were found. The steam was filled in the building by the core meltdown caused by dysfunction of the cooling system. Radioactive materials released into the environment, the government issued evacuations for residents within 20km

On March 11, 2011 an earthquake that measured 9.3 Richter scale occurred 43 miles of the coast of Northern Japan. This caused tremendous amounts of damage to the island of Tohouku. What happened is the quake initially destroyed buildings and property. However, a tsunami occurred, which devastated the region and the Fukushima nuclear power plant. ("Fukushima Accident")

The intensity of the earthquake was a major factor because its magnitude played a huge role in the damage that the disaster caused. It was reported to have hit a magnitude of 9-0 with the epicenter being located at least 80 miles away. The focus was 18.6 miles lower than the western Pacific. The result was a rapture of the subduction zone and thus led to the Japan Trench being affected. Several foreshocks reached as much as 6.0 and greater effects that ended up acting on the land in the following days and months even after the quake had subsided. The tsunami that accompanied the earthquake originated from a fault along the convergent plate boundary at the section where the Pacific plate joins with the west beneath Japan. The subduction zone was very active seismically at the time of the occurrence of the earthquake. Thus based on my understanding of earthquakes, the March 11 disaster was among the strongest earthquakes ever recorded because of the effects that followed because a portion of the ocean trench immediately went off-shore. In fact, it was later reported that a satellite that was orbiting around the Earth, infrasonics could be detected on the outer edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. The low-frequency waves meant that there were adverse effects that could be felt weeks after the real disaster had hit, hence the reporting that it was the

On Friday March 11th, 2011 at 2:46 pm, the fifth largest earthquake recorded since 1900 with a magnitude of 9.0, 1.7 Richter scale points greater than the devastating Vancouver Island earthquake of 1946, struck the coast of Japan, 231 miles northeast of Tokyo1, causing a devastating regional and global catastrophe.

The Fukushima disaster was caused by an earthquake and its following tsunami which caused a failure in the backup systems (World Nuclear Association, 2016). The tsunami knocked out the generators that powered the cooldown processes for three of the Fukushima power plants which caused the radiation leaks and other complications. Consequentially, the disaster was initially classified as a level 5 on the INES scale. Further investigation after the disaster was under control changed it to a level 7 disaster, the highest level on the INES scale. The estimated radioactive releases were about one tenth of Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history.

This earthquake left 2 million homeless and $600 million in damage this earthquake led to a tsunami 15 hours later a 35 foot wave smashed into hilo (the big island of hawaii) hawaii is more than 6 thousand miles away from chile. 1,600 homes were destroyed and 185 and more are dead ore missing. 1 day later a deadly 18 foot wave smashed into japan. this earthquake lasted for 11 minutes. this earthquake was big enough it rang the world for days like a bell. The earthquake hit at 7:11 pm approximately 100 miles (160 km) off the coast of Chile, parallel to the city of Valdivia. The shock is generally agreed to have had a magnitude of 9.5, though some studies alternately proposed that it may have been 9.4 or 9.6. A series of foreshocks the previous

This is the largest earthquake that has ever been recorded in Japan. (November 4, 1952, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia, Magnitude 9.0) This was the first ever earthquake that was recorded magnitude of 9.0 or higher. (February 27, 2010,Magnitude 8.8) The 2010 Chile earthquake ranks as the sixth largest earthquake to have ever been recorded. Recorded at a magnitude of 8.8, the shaking was felt at an intense level across six regions of that felt the earthquake. Several coastal towns in south-central Chile were damaged by the tsunami that was triggered by the

Tsunamis occur when there is sudden movement in an extensive body of water such as earthquakes, landslides on the sea floor, major volcanic eruptions or meteorite impacts. The most common source of a tsunami is earthquakes, which are another type of geomorphic hazard that is caused by the friction and stress that tectonic plates put on each other. Tsunamis primarily occur in coastal or island regions where there is a tectonic border or what is known as the ring of fire. As shown in the diagram below the ring of fire is located along the coastal and island regions of the world.As a result of the Pacific Plate diving beneath the Eurasian plate, on March 11, 2011, there were 2 geomorphic hazards, a magnitude-9 earthquake struck north Japan, which caused a deadly tsunami that reached heights of 39 meters. The destructive dilemma was dubbed ‘The Great Sendai Disaster’. The earthquake was caused by multiple centuries of stress on the tectonic plates surrounding the island. The earthquake caused a tsunami that reached the height of 39 meters (128 feet). Japanese scientists had previously discovered that there was another tsunami just like the one in 2011 that took place in 869 AD. But their warning was unhindered. The tsunami, which occurred in 869 AD, was caused by the same tectonic fault as the 2011 tsunami. The epicenter of the earthquake was off the northeast cost of Japan leading to a devastating tsunami that killed many and left many wishing they were. The massive earthquake caused an upward wave that headed towards the city of Sendai. Researches have recently uncovered a thin layer of clay that lubricated the fault zone causing the deadly tectonic slip, thus creating a tsunami that could wipe out an entire city as it did in 2011.The aftermath of the 2011 tsunami and earthquake was not pretty; it caused many deaths, injuries, traumas, financial difficulties, destruction of property, health bills and the destruction of the landscape as a whole. The natural disaster caused nearly 16,000 casualties and there are an estimated 2,500 people still reported missing. Although drowning caused most deaths others include, crushed by debris, suicide and diseases caused by nuclear radiation (cancer) spilled from nuclear

The nuclear disaster in Fukushima occurred at fourteen forty six, Japanese time. The disaster occurred because a major magnitude nine earthquake struck North Eastern Japan and a fifteen meter high tsunami also struck the power plant (Grimston). There were eleven overall reactors that were effected by the earthquake and tsunami. Nine of the reactors cooling systems continued to work after the natural disasters occurred, but reactors one, two and three of the Fukushima Daiichi plant were terribly damaged and could not cool down the fission process. This is what lead to the one, two and three reactors to melt, causing the most detrimental damage to the global community (Grimston). Critics of the disasters say that Daiichi was not up to global nuclear safety standards because the wall the protected the plant was only stable against six meter tall tsunami waves, not the massive

A deadly earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area killing two people and injuring six other in Hayward, California.

On Friday at 2:46 p.m. local time, near the northeast coast of Japan, there was a magnitude of 9.0 disastrous earthquake occurred on March 11, 2011 (“Poster of the Great Tohoku Earthquake”, 2012). Earthquakes occur at fault when a fracture in the earth along which movement occurs. When strain builds up, the fault slips and earthquake is created. Earthquake, the most destructive natural disasters of all is caused by the movement of the tectonic plates in the lithosphere. The ground shaking is produced by a rapid released of energy and stress in the Earth. When the stress is release, it sends vibrations known as seismic waves that produced at the focus of the earthquake. Honshu earthquake is considered as one of the deadliest earthquakes and

The epicenter of this earthquake was approximately 43 miles east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tohoku and the hypocenter had an underwater depth of approximately 19 miles. This earthquake has become known as the Great East Japan earthquake and this geological event greatly affected human civilizations in the area; powerful tsunamis were triggered, nuclear reactors were damaged, there were energy shortages, economic hardships and surprising geological effects resulted from this event. The Great East Japan earthquake is the most powerful earthquake to have ever hit Japan and the fourth largest recorded since modern record keeping began in 1900; ranking at a 9.0 on the moment magnitude scale and lasted an estimated six minutes (Oskin, 2015). Over eight hundred aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 or greater have occurred since the initial quake (Oskin, 2015).

To conclude, the continental plates snapped which created a 2 meter high tsunami, the energy of the plate movement is then transmitted to the stratum of sediments, causing a large vertical movement in the splay faults, this resulted in the sea level rising above the stratum and this created a 7 metre high sheer wall of a tsunami. If the tsunami was 7 metres offshore it more than doubled by the time in reached the shoreline.

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown was sparked by a massive tsunami off the coast of Japan caused by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake.

Along the northern shore of lituya bay, Alaska, recorded the largest tsunami, caused by an earthquake alone the fairweather fault in the Alaska panhandle. The huge wave hit the