JAPAN EARTHQUAKE / TSUNAMI 2011

By: Austin Rau

TOPICS OF PRESENTATION• Formation of earthquakes

• Formation of tsunamis

• Japan in relation to plate tectonics

• Japan’s disaster history and awareness

• The Tohoku earthquake / tsunami

• Seawalls

• The Fukushima Daiichi power plant crisis

• Aftermath

TOPICS OF PRESENTATION• Future measures

• Similar disasters

• My opinion

FORMATION OF EARTHQUAKES

WHAT IS AN EARTHQUAKE?• “Earthquakes occur along a plane of

weakness in earth’s crust known as a fault, which is common along plate boundaries”(Keller et al. 53).

• Earthquakes can be described using the earthquake cycle

Types of earthquake boundariesRetrieved from www.academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu

EARTHQUAKE CYCLE• 1 – period of geologic inactivity along a fault

• 2 – elastic strain (deformation as a result of stress) produces small earthquakes

• 3 – foreshocks may occur before the main event

• 4 – main earthquake and its aftershocks

• (Keller et al. 58)

TSUNAMI FORMATION

HOW EARTHQUAKES CAUSE TSUNAMIS• Tsunami (large harbor wave) are produced by the sudden vertical

displacement of water in the ocean (Keller et. al 102).

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyKgamjegtQ

TSUNAMIS• In the deep ocean, tsunami water moves fast. On average, tsunami waves

move at 450 mph and the wave height is usually less than 1m.

• As the tsunami nears land, the water depth decreases which causes the velocity to decrease. Allowing the waves to stack up on one another to make a huge wave (Keller et al. 113).

Tsunami wave off the coast of JapanRetrieved from: www. news.discovery.com

JAPAN IN RELATION TO PLATE TECTONICS

• Japan is located at the boundaries of the Eurasian plate and Pacific plate

• Japan is located 200 km west of the Japan trench where the pacific plate is subducting beneath the Eurasian plate at a rate of 9 cm / year. (mention convergent plate boundary (Keller et al. 53).

Map of tectonic platesRetrieved from www.worldatlas.com

JAPAN’S HISTORY & DISASTER

PREPAREDNESS

JAPAN DATA • Land use: • Arable land = 11.26%• Land area = comparable to the

state of California• Population = 127 million("World Factbook.”)

Japan population density mapRetrieved from www.maps.unomaha.edu

HISTORY OF EARTHQUAKES IN JAPAN• Throughout Japan's history, earthquakes

and tsunamis have made an impact on the land.

• One example is the Kobe earthquake in 1995 that killed about 200 people and injured another 1300. The earthquake measured 7.2 on the Richter scale and was the biggest earthquake to hit Japan in 47 years. ("1995 Earthquake Devastates Kobe.“)

Kobe earthquake highway damageRetrieved from www.cnn.com

JAPAN’S PREPAREDNESS BEFORE 2011• After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Japan has installed a system of GPS

stations (currently at 1200) spread across the nation. (Lay and Kanamori).

• Japan meteorological agency has the worlds first earthquake early warning system in which they can send out warnings via national television, radio and mobile phones.

• The Japanese people were warned 80 seconds before the Tohoku earthquake (Norio et al.)

• Japan also has invests heavily in disaster education, making its people some of the most disaster educated people.

• Japan has very strict building codes and is known for earthquake proofing nuclear power plants (Norio et al.)

•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEJFCntI8c

TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE &

TSUNAMI

TIMELINE• March 11, 2011: main earthquake happened. About 1 hour later, the

tsunami hits the Japanese coastline

• March 13, 2011: mandatory evacuation of people living within 10km of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant

• March 15, 2011 - The third explosion at the Daiichi plant in four days damages the suppression pool of reactor No. 2, similar to an explosion occurring at No. 1 over the weekend. Water continues to be injected into "pressure vessels" in order to cool down radioactive material.

TIMELINE• April 12, 2011 - Japan's nuclear agency raises the Fukushima Daiichi crisis

from Level 5 to a Level 7 event, the highest level, signifying a "major accident". It is now on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union, which amounts to a "major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures."

• June 6, 2011 - Japan's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters reports that reactors 1, 2 and 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced a full meltdown.

TIMELINE• June 30, 2011 - The Japanese government recommends more evacuations

of households 50 to 60 km northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The government said higher radiation is monitored sporadically in this area.

• July 16, 2011 - Kansai Electric announces that a reactor at the Ohi nuclear plant will be shut down due to problems with an emergency cooling system. This leaves only 18 of Japan's 54 nuclear plants producing electricity.

• ("2011 Japan Earthquake - Tsunami Fast Facts.“)

TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE 2011• The main earthquake happened on march 11, 2011

with its epicenter 77 km off the east coast of Honshu

• Its final measurement was 9.0 on the Richter scale making it the 3rd most powerful earthquake recorded in history

• It occurred 129 km from Sendai and 373 km from Tokyo (Norio et al.)

• Japan had 54 nuclear reactors, with two under construction, and 17 power plants, that produced about 30% of Japan's electricity at the time of the earthquake. ("2011 Japan Earthquake - Tsunami Fast Facts.“)

Tohoku earthquake epicenterRetrieved from www.npr.org

VIDEO• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSBjEvPH2j4

• The main shock was 9.0. After the main shock, about 10,000 aftershocks were recorded with about 2000 occurring 7 days after the main quake. Some were large enough to trigger the early warning system again with 39 aftershocks having magnitudes greater than M6. three were greater than M7! (Keller et al. 94-96).

EFFECTS OF EARTHQUAKE• The shear sliding of the plates shifted the coast of japan 5m eastward and

lifted the seafloor upwards of 5m over an area roughly the size of Connecticut.

• Displacements as large as 60-80m (the largest ever recorded) happened near the subduction trench

• This sudden release of energy reduced the length of the earth day by 1.8 microseconds (Lay and Kanamori).

• It shifted the earth’s axis by 25cm

• About 400km of Japan's east coast subsided about 0.6m. With some places subsiding up to 1.2 m.

• The subsidence would later cause sea wall failures (Norio et al.)

• The earthquake caused 4000 landslides along the sparsely populated mountainous regions of the east coast. 20 people were killed.

• The earthquake also triggered a tsunami which later causes more damage in Japan and causes the malfunction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (Keller et al. 94-96).

LIQUEFACTION • Intense shaking causes the near surface layer of water saturated soil to

change from a solid to a liquid (Keller et al. 79).

•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3hJK1BoRak

WHAT’S A MEGATHRUST? • “A megathrust earthquake is a very large earthquake that occurs in a

subduction zone, a region where one of the earth's tectonic plates is thrust under another. The two plates are continually moving towards one another, yet become "stuck" where they are in contact. Eventually the build-up of strain exceeds the friction between the two plates and a huge megathrust earthquake occurs.” ("Questions and Answers on Megathrust Earthquakes.”)

• The Tohoku earthquake is classified as a megathrust event.

WHAT IF THE EPICENTER WAS CLOSER TO TOKYO?

• Tokyo, the capital of japan, has a population of 37 million (about 30% of Japan’s 127 million people) ("World Factbook.“) - CIA

• A disaster of this scale with an epicenter closer to Tokyo could have resulted in the biggest natural disaster Japan has ever seen.

City of TokyoRetrieved from www.vacationadvice101.com

TSUNAMI MAP• The earthquake released about

600 million times more energy than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima (Norio et al.)

• It caused as much as 9m of vertical displacement of the seafloor setting off a tsunami with waves as high as 40m (Keller et al. 101).

Tsunami mapRetrieved from www.bbc.com

THE TOHOKU TSUNAMI • Tsunami waves 3-15m high overtopped seawalls and other protected

harbors and had a run-up as far as 10km (Lay and Kanamori)

• It destroyed villages, inundated crops, and spread debris across the coastal plains of japan

• The tsunami also disrupted the fukushima daiichi power plants

Inundated land in japanRetrieved from www.totallycoolpix.com

TSUNAMI DESTRUCTION •https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noq8FYvRqgs

Upper: Otsuchi, JapanLower: Natori, Japan before and afterRetrieved from www.nationalgeographic.com

SEAWALLS

SEAWALLS• At least 40% of Japan's 22,000 mile coastline is lined with seawalls or other

structures designed to protect the shoreline from high waves.

• Seawalls are constructed in places that have suffered from tsunamis before. Tourism officials have called them an eyesore and fisherman complain because they need the sea to fish from their homes (Onishi)

Miyako seawallRetrieved from www.theglobeandmail.com

KAMAISHI SEAWALL• world’s largest seawall constructed at a depth of 209 ft., a length of 1.2

miles and 20 ft. (6m) high and at a cost of $1.5 billion (Onishi)

• Tsunami waves measuring around 10m overtopped the seawall which was designed to protect against 5m high waves from M8 earthquakes that happen every 100 years. (Keller et al. 120-121)

FAILING SEAWALLS• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-zfCBCq-8I

Miyako seawallRetrieved from www.nationalgeographic.com

THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR

POWER PLANT CRISIS

FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI POWER PLANT• After the earthquake, 11 nuclear power plants in northeast japan stopped

operations (Norio et al.)

• How the power plant works• Water

• Cooling system

• Power source

HOW THE POWER PLANT FAILED

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdbitRlbLDc – 3 min reactor failure

Hydrogen explosion at the fukushima daiichi power plantRetrieved from www.nationalgeographic.com

AFTERMATH

DAMAGE AROUND THE PACIFIC• The tsunami hit Hawaii in 7 hours and

California in 10 hours after the earthquake with enough force to damage harbors and coastal resorts.

• Damage occurred in nations surrounding the Pacific including: The Philippines, New Guinea, Indonesia, Peru and Chile (Lay and Kanamori).

SOCIAL IMPACT• Death toll as of Feb 10, 2014 = 15,884 ("2011 Japan Earthquake - Tsunami

Fast Facts.“)

• According to the japan national police agency (npa) by April 2013 there was 13,392 people dead, 15,133 missing, and 335,000 refugees in northeast japan. (Norio et al.)

THE ELDERLY• Nearly 25% of Japan's population is over age 65 compared to 12% in the

U.S. during the aftermath of the tohoku earthquake, many elderly were left stranded in hospitals and other facilities for days. They waited in the cold with no electricity to be evacuated. Many died in transit to the shelter or at the shelter because of the lack of water, medicine and food (Keller et al. 122)

Left: population pyramid of Japanese population. Retrieved from www.cia.govRight: elderly Japanese in a shelter. Retrieved from www.nationalgeographic.com

STRUCTURAL IMPACT• By April 3rd, there were 190,000

buildings damaged of which 45,700 were completely destroyed.

• About 250 million tons of rubble and debris was produced in japan because of this disaster (Norio et al.)

Tsunami damageRetrieved from: www.eqecat.com

ECONOMIC IMPACT• Material damage from the earthquake and tsunami are estimated at 25

trillion yen ($300 billion)

• On November 18, 2013: Tokyo electric power company (TECPO) says it has started removing fuel rods from the damaged reactor no.4. the cleanup is estimated at $50 billion ("2011 Japan Earthquake - Tsunami Fast Facts." )

Japanese yenRetrieved from: www.creditwritedowns.com

• An estimated 23,600 hectares of farmland was ruined and 3-4% of the rice production in japan was ruined.

• Many large scale automobile makers such as Toyota, Nissan, and Honda halted production which caused a decrease in global automobile manufacturing

• The earthquake caused a rapid appreciation of the yen. At one point the yen against the US dollar was 76.25 yen to $1—the highest since WWII. Appreciation of the yen is harmful to the export oriented Japanese economy (Norio et al.)

POLITICAL IMPACT• The Japanese government created a

special headquarters for major disasters headed by the prime minister.

• Another main response headquarters lead by the PM dealt with the nuclear crisis

• These two groups worked together and became the main decision making body for the crisis management (Norio et al.)

Former prime minister of Japan – Naoto KanRetrieved from www.telegraph.co.uk

• On April 13th The ministry of defense sent mobilized 180,000 troops to provide search and rescue / logistics for the disaster—the largest number since WWII

• On march 14, 15, 17,and 22, the bank of japan injected a grand total of 4 trillion yen in cash into the market (Norio et al.)

Japanese red cross workerRetrieved from www.tokyotimes.com

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT• An estimated 100 metric tons of radioactive water has leaked from a

holding tank at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant into the pacific ocean

• In February 2014, the Japanese government estimates that the tsunami swept out 5 million tons of debris offshore. Of that 70% sank, leaving 1.5 million tons floating in the pacific ocean. ("2011 Japan Earthquake - Tsunami Fast Facts." )

The map (left) shows the output of the Surface Currents from Diagnostic (SCUD) model, an attempt to simulate where and how that debris would disperse. Orange and red shaded areas represent parcels of water with a high probably of containing floating debris. The deeper the red color, the higher the likely concentration. The debris field stretches roughly 5,000 kilometers by 2,000 kilometers across the North Pacific.

Retrieved from earthobservatory.nasa.gov

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE• By march 30, 134 countries and 39 international organizations expressed

willingness to aid japan.

• 23 countries sent out rescue workers and experts on nuclear accidents

• An estimated 1300 tons of relief goods from 29 countries arrived at japan between March 12 -25

• By April 3rd, the Japanese red cross had received $1 billion in donations (Norio et al.)

FUTURE MEASURES

FUTURE MEASURES• The leaking of radioactive water was thought to have been contained until

the summer of 2013 when it was discovered that the plant was still actively leaking radioactive water. The Japanese government does not yet have a plan to address the leaking radioactive water as of late 2013 (Keller et al. 123)

• Japan is rebuilding the seawalls and other buildings that were destroyed.

SIMILAR DISASTERS

SIMILAR DISASTERS• The Indonesia tsunami of 2004

• 9.0 earthquake in the Indian ocean

• Caused tsunami with waves as high as 15 m

• Killed over 150,000 people and displace over 1 million people in 11 countries (“The Deadliest Tsunami in History?”)

Indonesia tsunami map 2004Retrieved from www.worldatlas.com

COMPARISON• Tohoku earthquake released two times as much energy as the Indonesian

tsunami (Norio et al.)

• The Indonesian tsunami killed about 9 times more people than the tohoku earthquake / tsunami

DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN• Cascadia subduction zone off the

coast of Washington / Oregon

• There is potential for a major earthquake that could cause a tsunami.

Retrieved from oceanlink.island.net

MY OPINION

MY OPINION • There was no way Japan could have fully prepared for a disaster of this

intensity and I believe if it hit any other country that the damages and loss of life would have been more severe.

WORKS CITED• "Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Problem Explained (CNN)." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "How Earthquakes Trigger Tsunamis - Bang Goes The Theory, Preview - BBC One." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "Japan Earthquakes 2011 Visualization Map." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• Keller, Edward A., Duane E. Devecchio, and Robert H. Blodgett. Natural Hazards: Earth's Processes as Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes. 4th ed. S.l.: Pearson Education Limited, 2015. Print.

• Lay, Thorne, and Hiroo Kanamori. "Insights from the Great 2011 Japan Earthquake." Physics Today 64.12 (2011): 33-39. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "Liquefaction Video of Japan Tohoku-Oki Earthquake in Central Park - Water Pouring from Cracks." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "New Dramatic Video: Tsunami Wave Spills over Seawall, Smashes Boats, Cars." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

WORKS CITED• Norio, Okada, Tao Ye, Yoshio Kajitani, Peijun Shi, and Hirokazu Tatano. "The 2011 Eastern Japan

Great Earthquake Disaster: Overview and Comments." International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 2.1 (2011): 34-42. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• Onishi, Norimitsu. "Seawalls Offered Little Protection Against Tsunami’s Crushing Waves." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Mar. 2011. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "Questions and Answers on Megathrust Earthquakes." PGC, Jim Lyons. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "The Deadliest Tsunami in History?" National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 7 Jan. 2005. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.

• "Tsunami Strike Japan - Warning Systems Part 3." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "World Factbook." Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.

• "1995 Earthquake Devastates Kobe." BBC News. BBC, 17 Jan. 1995. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "2011 Japan Tsunami Caught on CCTV Cameras." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.

• "2011 Japan Earthquake - Tsunami Fast Facts." CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.