Today is the five-year anniversary of the fascinating but heartbreaking anniversary of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami nicknamed the great Tohoku earthquake. The quake was a magnitude 9.0. It occurred March 11, 2011 beneath the Pacific Ocean off the largest Japanese island of Honshu. This earthquake resulted in the devastating tsunami that scoured the land many miles inland along Japan’s northern coast line and eventually affecting the entire Pacific Basin.
x YouTube VideoThe Tohoku earthquake resulted from thrust faulting with a sideways and downward movement of the edge of one plate of the earth's crust into the mantle beneath another plate and that occurred between the Pacific and North American plates. This movement triggered a devastating tsunami along the coast of Japan, killing over 230,000 people inundating coastal communities with waves up to 100 ft high. And of course, the world still has a radioactive crisis in Northern Japan at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.
This image, taken on March 11, 2011, from the fourth floor of the radioactive waste disposal building, shows water rising from Tsunami waves at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. Photo released on May 19, 2011.