This is an analysis on what is known to be the largest earthquake and biggest tsunami ever to hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The earthquake and tsunami Japans coast lies in ruins after the earthquake hit followed by the tsunami picking up everything in its path like cars, houses, and warehouses. Seismometers, strain gages, and title gages records the disaster. P-waves travel at four miles a second and within seconds warnings flash across the country. The S-waves shake the ground making earthquakes so damaging and the reactor core is shut down (Kerger, 2011.
At approximately 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906 the city of San Francisco was struck by a 7.9 magnitude earthquake! The main shock occurred offshore about 2 miles out. The earthquake happened along the San Andreas Fault line, and the shock was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles. The earthquake was extremely catastrophic which also resulted in fires. This earthquake is remembered as one of the most destructive natural disasters next to the Galveston hurricane of 1900, and hurricane Katrina of 2005.
This time, 40,000 were killed instantly, and another 40,000 due to injuries and radiation. Common descriptions of the bombing include a "mushroom cloud", an extremely bright flash of light that caused blindness, severe burns (skin hanging from people, eyes burnt, people turned into ash etc. ), and the entire area being literally flattened. It was said that the heat produced was equivalent to the sun, and that the force of one atomic bomb was equivalent to 67 million sticks of dynamite! After the war, atomic bombs have never been used again.
8 H October 26, 2012 1886 Charleston Earthquake In Charleston August 31, 1886, a devastating earthquake shocked millions throughout the country. Not only was this earthquake reported in South Carolina, but in distant places such as Boston, Massachusetts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois, Cuba, Bermuda, and many more. Why so many places? The earthquake recorded a 7.4 on the Richter scale. This tells us that it’s a powerful earthquake, reaching and being felt by farther away places.
In addition to loss of life and destruction of infrastructure, the tsunami caused a number of nuclear accidents and the associated evacuation zones affecting hundreds of thousands of residents. The overall cost could exceed US$300 billion, making it the most expensive natural disaster on record. 2. The full impact of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami will not be known for some time. The world’s focus at this time is on the enormous loss of life as a result of this tragedy.
The Great Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Japan and sent a thirty-three foot tsunami raging down the coast to devastate their towns even further. To make matters even worse, the earthquake also triggered a nuclear emergency that has been compared to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. (McCurry, 1) This earthquake was the worst earthquake in Japan’s recorded history. (McCurry, 1) It would not be surprising if people will still talk about it for centuries to come. The earthquake began off of the north-eastern coast of Honshu and caused catastrophic damage.
The shifting of the earth’s plates in the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26, 2004 caused a rupture more than 600 miles long, displacing the seafloor above the rupture by perhaps 10 yards horizontally and several yards vertically. As a result, trillions of tons of rock were moved along hundreds of miles and caused the planet to shudder with the largest magnitude earthquake in 40 years. Within hours of the earthquake, killer waves radiating from the epicentre slammed into the coastline of 11 Indian Ocean countries, damaging countries from east Africa to Thailand. A tsunami is a series of waves, and the first wave may not be the most dangerous. A tsunami “wave train” may come as surges five minutes to an hour apart.
The main radioactive elements that cause maximum damage to the affected population were iodine-131 and caesium-137. Which iodine-131 is short-lived, caesium-137 has a long life (World Nuclear Association, 2013). The Chernobyl nuclear plant is located in the small township of Chernobyl that had a population of around 12000 in 1986. Very near to Chernobyl is the city of Pripyat that had a population of around 50,000 people. Both these places took the real brunt of the accident and were massively affected.
Estimates of the Tohoku earthquake's magnitude make it the most powerful known earthquake to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world overall since modern record-keeping began in 1900. The Fukushima I, Fukushima II, Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant and Tokai nuclear power stations, consisting of a total eleven reactors, were automatically shut down following the earthquake. Japan's government said the cost of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeast could reach $309 billion, making it the world's most expensive natural disaster on record. According to the chief scientist for the Multi-Hazards project at the U.S. Geological Survey, the fact that the Tohoku earthquake took place in Japan—a country with "the best seismic information in the world"—meant that large amounts of data were collected for an earthquake of this type and severity. Japan specifically requested teams from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and the United States; it also requested, via its space agency JAXA, the activation of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, allowing diverse satellite imagery of affected regions to be
The earthquake’s strongest point lasted for around 8-10 minutes. The tsunami created a permanent rise in global sea level by at least 0.1mm and it caused an inactive volcano located in the Leuser Mountain, Indonesia to active. Did you know the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by an earthquake that is thought to have had the energy of 23,000 atomic bombs. *Location* The tsunami was located in 15 different countries. The countries which were affected the most include Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.