RECENT TOHOKU TSUNAMI AND EARTHQUAKE: A NATURAL CONSEQUENCE OF THE MOVEMENT OF THE PACIFIC PLATE ALONG THE TRENCH, EAST OF THE JAPANESE ISLAND ARC

摘要

The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (tsu meaning harbor; nami meaning wave), which officially has been named by the Japanese Government as the Great Eastern Japanese Earthquake, took place at 14:46 JST on Friday, March 11, 2011 (Wikipedia). The epicenter of the quake lay 72 km east of Oshika Peninsula of Tohoku. The quake triggered tsunami raising ocean waves up to 124 ft high and struck Japan a few minutes after the quake, travelling up to 10 km inland. The intensity of the quake has been measured to be 9.01 in the Richter's Scale, and it is the most powerful quake to have rocked Japan and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since 1900. According to the estimate of the Government of Japan, the loss of revenue due to this earthquake and the Tsunami may be beyond 309 billion dollars, which makes it to be the world's most expensive natural disaster on record.