Honshu Earthquake of 11 March 2011, Mw=9
At 14:46 local time (05:46 Universal Time) on 11 March 2011, an earthquake with a magnitude of Mw=9 occurred in the Honshuu island on the eastern coast of Japan, 130 km East of the city of Sendai and 373 km northeast of Tokyo (38.297 N, 142.372 E), at a depth of 24 kilometers in the Pacific ocean. The earthquake fault rupture occurred in an area of about 200*400 kilometers. Fault rupture time lasted for 173 seconds (about three minutes) in the Japan’s subduction zone. The 2011 Honshu, Japan earthquake generated a tsunami that was observed all over the Pacific region and caused tremendous devastation locally. According to the report of the National Police Agency of Japan, there are 15,890 deaths and 2,590 missing and presumed deaths; and 6,152 injuries in 12 Japanese prefectures. The tsunami also caused one death in Papua, Indonesia and one death in Klamath River, California. The earthquake and tsunami caused $220 billion damage in Japan and resulted in a nuclear disaster with an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) rating of 7 at the Fukushima I (Daiichi) Nuclear Power station. This is the fourth largest earthquake in the world and the largest in Japan since instrumental recordings began in 1900.
