M 9.1 - 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake, Japan
- 2011-03-11 05:46:24 (UTC)
- 38.297°N 142.373°E
- 29.0 km depth
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At least 15,703 people killed, 4,647 missing, 5,314 injured, 130,927 displaced and at least 332,395 buildings, 2,126 roads, 56 bridges and 26 railways destroyed or damaged by the earthquake and tsunami along the entire east coast of Honshu from Chiba to Aomori. The majority of casualties and damage occurred in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima from a Pacific-wide tsunami with a maximum runup height of 37.88 m at Miyako. The total economic loss in Japan was estimated at 309 billion US dollars. Electricity, gas and water supplies, telecommunications and railway service disrupted and several reactors severely damaged at a nuclear power plant near Okuma. Several fires occurred in Chiba and Miyagi. At least 1,800 houses destroyed when a dam failed in Fukushima. Maximum acceleration of 2.93 g recorded at Tsukidate. Horizontal displacement and subsidence observed. Landslides occurred in Miyagi. Liquefaction observed at Chiba, Odaiba, Tokyo and Urayasu. The tsunami destroyed or severely damaged many coastal towns in the Kuji-Minamisanriku-Nami area. One person killed and several houses destroyed at Jayapura, Indonesia by a tsunami with a wave height of 2 m. One person killed south of Crescent City, California and several boats and docks destroyed or damaged at Crescent City by a tsunami with a recorded wave height of 247 cm. Several houses, boats and docks destroyed or damaged at Santa Cruz, California; Brookings, Oregon; Hale`iwa, Kailua Kona and Kealakekua, Hawaii. Some buildings damaged slightly in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador by a tsunami with a recorded wave height of 208 cm at Santa Cruz. Several houses destroyed at Pisco, Peru. Several buildings destroyed at Dichato and several boats damaged at Puerto Viejo and on Isla Chiloe, Chile. Felt (VIII) at Fukushima, (VII) at Agui, Hiratsuka, Kiryu, Komae, Oyama, Sendai and Tsukuba and (VI) in much of eastern Honshu, including the Tokyo-Yokohama area, Japan. Felt from Hokkaido to Kyushu. Recorded (7 JMA) in Miyagi. Felt in Northern Mariana Islands, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, northeastern China and southeastern Russia as far as Kaohsiung, Beijing and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. Seiches observed at Leikanger, Norway. Water fluctuations observed in a well in Newfoundland, Canada. The tsunami had maximum runup heights of 29.6 m at Ofunato, 18.4 m at Onagawa and 9.4 m at Iwaki. Wave heights in centimeters (above sea level) were recorded at the following selected tide gauges: 250 at Arica, Chile; 282 at Hanasaki and 157 at Omaezaki, Japan; 163 at Manzanillo, Mexico; 156 on Midway Island; 97 on Chatham Island, New Zealand; 109 at Manus, Papua New Guinea; 173 at Callao, Peru; 250 at Kahului, Hawaii, USA; 202 at Port Orford, Oregon; 157 at Shemya, Alaska. The tsunami also caused some massive slabs of ice to calve from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf, Antarctica.