§  Japan has many earthquakes in the past and the future.
§  They have earthquake signal in every places, such as school, offices and hospital.
§  There are substantial sea walls to defend against tsunami.
§  The coastline is particularly vulnerable to tsunami waves, because it has many deep bays that amplify the waves and cause the land to be inundated by the sea.
§  On 11 March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the north-east of the main island, Honshu.
§  It happened because Pacific and Eurasian Plate collide.
§  They are moving towards each other at 83 millimetre/year.
§  The epicentre was beneath the Pacific Ocean, 129 kilometre east of the port of Sendai and 373 kilometre north of the Tokyo.
§  The depth of the focus was 32 kilometre.


Effects:
§  The tsunami was up to 10 meter high.
§  The death toll was 12000 and 15500 people were missing.
§  215000 people had fled their homes.
§  Whole village washed away.
§  A muddy torrent of water swept cars.
§  Residential areas and paddy fields into a lagoon of debris-filled seawater.
§  The train could not trace along the North-eastern coast.
§  The Fukushima nuclear power station suffered a partial meltdown, with leaks of radioactive material into the environment.
§  4 million homes and around Tokyo suffered power cuts.


Responses:
§  Rescue team from Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and Singapore.
§  An American aircraft carrier was already in Japan.
§  The country’s military mobilised thousands of troops, 300 planes and 40 ships for the relief effort.
§  A huge relief mission swung into action in North-eastern of Japan .