2.1 - case study - tohoku earthquake

Question 1

What was the date, time, magnitude, depth, epicentre and cause of the tohoku earthquake

Answer 1

• 11th March, 2011 at 14:46
• 9.0 on the richter scale
• Occured of the Japnanese coastline with an epicentre 43 miles east of tohoku at a depth of 20 miles

Question 2

What were the plates involved in the Tohoku earthquake

Answer 2

• The denser oceanic Pacific plate was subducted uner the less dense continental Eurasian plate
• the amount of energy released was 600 million times the Hiroshima nuclear bomb

Question 3

What were the short term impacts on people

Answer 3

• 15,894 died
• 6,152 people injured
• 2,562 people remained missing
• 9m waves flooded Fukishima power plant meaning peopled lost electricity; 4.4 million households without electricity in North-East Japan
• Waves washed over 12 metre flood defences
• 332, 395 buildings; 2,126 roads, 56 bridges were destroyed

Question 4

What where the short term environmental impacts

Answer 4

• There were 800 earthquakesof magnitude 4.5 or more following the earthquake
• 40m high tsunami travelled 6 miles inland
• landfall occured in some areas, dropped the beackfronts more than 50cm

Question 5

Long term impacts on people

Answer 5

• Economic cost of $235 billion; most expensive natural disaster in world history
• Damage caused to Fukishima ended up in nuclea meltdown of 7 reactors; radiation was at 8 times the normal level
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Question 6

Long term impacts on envrionment

Answer 6

• Parts of Jpana moved 2.4cm closer to North America
• A 250 mile stretch of coastline dropped 0.6 metres
• Pacific plate slipped between 20-40 metres westward
• The seabed near the epicentre shifted by 24metres
• The earth’s axis moved by 10-25 cm, shortening the day by 1.8 microseconds