Sendai Earthquake Effect on infrastructure

Port

The effects of the quake included visible smoke rising from a building in the Port of Tokyo with parts of the port areas being flooded, including soil liquefaction in Tokyo Disneyland's carpark.

Dam failure

Kyodo News reported a dam in Fukushima Prefecture failed, washing away homes. No casualties have been counted, but the Defense Ministry reported 1,800 homes downstream were destroyed.

Water

More than a million households were reported to have lost water supplies.

Electricity

According to Tohoku Electric, around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity. Several nuclear and conventional power plants went offline after the earthquake.

Nuclear power plants

Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, Fukushima I, Fukushima II and Tōkai nuclear power stations were automatically shut down following the earthquake. Higashidōri, also on the northeast coast, was already shut down for a periodic inspection. The Rokkasho nuclear reprocessing plant, also on the coast, was being powered by emergency diesel generators.

Separately, a fire broke out at the Onagawa plant. The blaze was in a building housing the turbine, which is sited separately from the plant's reactor.

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant I and II

Japan declared a state of emergency following the failure of the cooling system at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, resulting in the evacuation of nearby residents. Officials from the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency have reported that radiation levels inside the plant are up to 1,000 times normal levels, and that radiation levels outside the plant are up to 8 times allowable limits. Later, a state of emergency was also declared at the nearby Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant, as it suffered a cooling failure as well.

It was reported that the Tokyo Electric Power Company was preparing to vent contaminated steam from the reactor vessel into the atmosphere. According to Tomoko Murakami of the nuclear energy group at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics, this would not result in the release of significant radiation. The cores of both reactors remain hot, however, so cooling is still required. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency reported that due to lack of electricity, the emergency cooling system is currently running on backup battery power. Residents living within a 20-kilometer (12 mi) radius of the Fukushima I plant were evacuated, as well as residents within 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) of the Fukushima II plant.

A large explosion took place at the Fukushima I plant on 12 March at 15:36 local time. Several workers were reported to be injured. Pictures broadcast on Japanese television appeared to show the outer structure of one of the buildings had collapsed, releasing a large cloud of dust and vapor. The Kyodo News and Jiji Press services reported that the plant may have experienced a nuclear meltdown just before the explosion. The blast was described as "huge" and "massive". A BBC journalist reported being stopped 60 kilometers from the blast site by police.

At 03:07 JST (12:37 GMT) Reuters reported that TEPCO plans to cool the leaking reactor with sea water, using Boric acid to prevent criticality. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said "The concrete building collapsed. We found out that the reactor container inside didn't explode." He explained that the containment building collapse was due to the falling level of cooling water creating hydrogen, which subsequently exploded. Edano said it would take about five to ten hours to fill the reactor core with sea water and around ten days to complete the process.

Oil

An oil refinery of Cosmo Oil Company was set on fire by the quake at Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, to the east of Tokyo. Major fires broke out elsewhere, such as in the city of Kesennuma.

Transport

Japan's transport network suffered. Many sections of Tohoku expressway serving northern Japan were damaged. All railway services were suspended in Tokyo, with an estimated 20,000 people stranded at major stations across the city. In the hours after the earthquake, some train services were resumed.

There had been no derailments of Shinkansen bullet train services in and out of Tokyo, but services were suspended; Narita and Haneda Airport both suspended operations after the quake, with most flights diverted to other airports until further notice. Various train services around Japan were also cancelled, with JR East suspending all services for the rest of the day. Four trains on coastal lines were reported as being out of contact with operators; one, a four-car train on the Senseki Line was found to have derailed, and its occupants were rescued shortly after 8 am the next morning.

Telecommunications

Cell and phone service is suffering major disruption in the area.

According to an unnamed official from Chunghwa Telecom, the earthquake has caused "some damage" to undersea cable APCN 2 near Kita on the eastern coast of Japan but data transmission hasn't been interrupted.

Economic impact

Economic analysts posit that, ultimately, the catastrophe will improve Japan's economy, with increased job availability during restoration efforts. David Hensley of JPMorgan Chase, citing the 1989 San Francisco earthquake and the 1994 Northridge earthquake, noted that natural disasters "do eventually boost output". Takuji Okubo of Société Générale anticipated that Japan's economy will decline in March but will revive powerfully in subsequent months. He recalled that in January 1995 after the Kobe earthquake, industrial output dropped 2.6%, but increased by 2.2% the next month, and 1% the following month. Japan's economy then accelerated substantially through the next two years, at more than its former rate.

The quake has had significant immediate impacts on business. Toyota has had to temporarily close three factories in the affected region, and Nissan has had to extinguish fires at two of its factories. The Bank of Japan has set up an emergency task force to ensure liquidity in the aftermath of the disaster.

Financial markets

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Japan’s Nikkei stock market index saw its futures slide 5% in after-market trading. The Bank of Japan said that they would do their utmost to ensure financial market stability.

Other stock markets around the world were also affected; the German DAX lost 1.2% and fell to 6,978 points within minutes. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell by 1.8%, while South Korea's Kospi index slumped by 1.3%. By the end of trading on Friday, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index had dropped by 1.8%. Major U.S. stock market indexes rose between 0.5% and 0.7%. Oil prices also dropped as a result of the closure of Japanese refineries, despite the ongoing violence in Libya and expected demonstrations in Saudi Arabia. US crude dropped as low as $99.01 from $100.08 by lunchtime, with Brent Crude falling $2.62 to $112.81. In Hong Kong, Financial Secretary John Tsang warned investors to "take extra care" as the earthquake may have a short term impact on the local stock market.

The share prices of the biggest reinsurance companies Munich Re and Swiss Reinsurance Company fell following the earthquake on speculation that they may face losses "somewhere in the $10 billion range" even after certain costs were absorbed by Japan’s primary insurers and the government.

Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) has confirmed approximately 400 dead and approximately 700 missing in six different prefectures (also reported as over 1100 dead/missing combined). Later confirmed deaths were 503 with: one in Hokkaido, three in Aomori, 221 in Iwate, 129 in Miyagi, one in Yamagata, 115 in Fukushima, four in Tokyo, 13 in Ibaraki, three in Tochigi, one in Gunma, ten in Chiba, three in Kanagawa and a police estimate of 200–300 in an inaccessible coastal part near Sendai City in Miyagi. Reports of missing persons suggested 740 were unaccounted for and that 1,040 were injured.

Officials in Wakabayashi-ku, Sendai, which was heavily damaged by tsunami waves, stated that they had found the bodies of 200–300 victims.

By 09:30 March 11 UTC, Google Person Finder, which was previously used in the Haitian, Chilean, and Christchurch earthquakes, was collecting information about survivors and their locations.^] The Next of Kin Registry NOKR is assisting the Japanese government to locate next of kin for those missing or deceased.

It was reported that four passenger trains containing an unknown number of passengers disappeared in a coastal area during the tsunami. Two of the trains were on the Senseki Line. One of the Senseki Line trains was found derailed in the morning, and all passengers were rescued by a prefectural police helicopter.

One man was killed in Papua, Indonesia after being swept out to sea. A 25-year-old man who was taking pictures of the tsunami waves in coastal Del Norte County, California was also swept out to sea and confirmed dead.

The earthquake triggered tsunami warnings and evacuations for Japan's Pacific coast and at least 20 countries, including the entire Pacific coast of North and South America from Alaska to Chile. The tsunami warning issued by Japan was the most serious on its warning scale, implying that the wave was expected to be at least 10 meters (33 ft) high. A wave that high was observed at 3:55 pm JST flooding Sendai Airport, which is located near the coast of Miyagi Prefecture, with waves sweeping aside cars and flooding various buildings as they traveled inland. The impact of the tsunami in and around Sendai Airport was filmed by an NHK News helicopter, showing a number of vehicles on local roads trying to escape the approaching wave and being engulfed by it. A 4-meter (13 ft)-high tsunami hit Iwate Prefecture. A 0.5-meter (20 in)-high wave hit Japan's northern coast. Reports indicate that the wall of water was higher than some Pacific islands, and the danger of tsunami flooding prompted warnings for almost the entire Pacific basin. Several news outlets have reported that the death toll has risen to 1,300, with some reporting 1,600. The United States West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for the coastal areas of California and Oregon from Point Conception, California, to the Oregon-Washington border.

The main earthquake was preceded by a number of large foreshocks, beginning with a 7.2 M_W event on 9 March approximately 40 kilometers (25 mi) from 11 March quake, and followed by another three on the same day in excess of 6 M_W in intensity. One minute prior to the earthquake, Earthquake Early Warning connected to about 1,000 seismometers in Japan sent out warnings on television of an impending earthquake to millions. This is believed to have saved innumerable lives.

The earthquake occurred in the western Pacific Ocean, 130 kilometers (81 mi) east of Sendai, Honshu, Japan. Its epicenter was 373 kilometers (232 mi) from Tokyo, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Multiple aftershocks were reported after the initial magnitude 8.9 quake at 14:46 local time. A magnitude 7.0 aftershock was reported at 15:06 local time, M7.4 at 15:15 local time and M7.2 at 15:26 local time. Over one hundred aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 or greater have occurred since the initial quake.

Initially reported as 7.9 by the USGS, the magnitude was quickly restated as 8.8 and then to 8.9, and then again to either 9.0 or 9.1 according to some sources. This earthquake occurred in the Japan Trench, where the Pacific Plate is subducting beneath the Okhotsk Plate. A quake of this size usually has a rupture length of at least 480 kilometers (300 mi) and requires a long, relatively straight fault line. Because the plate boundary and subduction zone in this region is not very straight, earthquake magnitudes are usually expected to be between 8 and 8.5; the magnitude of this earthquake was a surprise to some seismologists. The hypocentral region of this earthquake extends from offshore Iwate to offshore Ibaraki Prefectures. The Japanese Meteorological Agency said that the earthquake may have ruptured the fault zone from Iwate to Ibaraki with a length of 400 kilometers (250 mi) and a width of 200 kilometers (120 mi). It has been pointed out that this earthquake may have had the same mechanism as that of another large earthquake in 869, which also caused a large tsunami.

The quake registered a maximum 7 on the Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale in Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture. Three other prefectures—Fukushima, Ibaraki and Tochigi—recorded upper 6 on the JMA scale. Seismic stations in Iwate, Gunma, Saitama and Chiba Prefecture measured lower 6, recording upper 5 in Tokyo.

A local official at the hardest-hit city of Kurihara in Miyagi Prefecture, in a telephone interview by Agence France-Presse (AFP) said:

We were shaken so strongly for a while that we needed to hold on to something in order not to fall. We couldn't escape the building immediately because the tremors continued... City officials are now outside, collecting information on damage.

A separate earthquake measured magnitude of 6.7 by JMA occurred at 18:59 UTC, 11 March (03:59, 12 March local time). Its hypocenter was in Niigata Prefecture at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 mi). The quake was recorded upper 6 on the JMA intensity scale in Nagano Prefecture and lower 6 in Niigata. It also resulted in numerous aftershocks.

The Sendai earthquake and tsunami was an 8.9 to 9.1-M_W megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 05:46 UTC (14:46 local time) on 11 March 2011. The epicenter was reported to be 130 kilometers (81 mi) off the east coast of the Oshika Peninsula, Tōhoku, with the hypocenter at a depth of 24.4 kilometers (15.2 mi). It was locally measured at the maximum possible 7 on the Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale in the northern Miyagi Prefecture, Japan,^[10] 6 in other prefectures and 5 in Tokyo.

The earthquake triggered tsunami warnings and evacuations from Japan's Pacific coast and at least 20 countries, including the entire Pacific coast of North America and South America. The earthquake created tsunami waves of up to 10 meters (33 ft) that struck Japan and many other countries.^] In Japan, the waves are reported to have travelled up to 10 kilometres (6 mi) inland.

News reports indicate that more than 605 people have died and 784 are missing in six different prefectures. The earthquake caused extensive damage in Japan, including heavy damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and a dam collapse. Around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.4 million without water. Many electrical generators were taken down, and at least two nuclear reactors were damaged, which prompted evacuations of the affected areas, and a state of emergency was established. The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant experienced an explosion almost 24 hours after the initial earthquake; however, the blast was in an area not containing radioactive materials. Residents within a 20-kilometer (12 mi) radius of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and a 10-kilometer (6.2 mi) radius of the Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant were evacuated.

The estimates of the Sendai earthquake's magnitude would make it the largest earthquake to hit Japan and one of the five largest earthquakes in the world since modern record-keeping began. It is thought to have been the largest earthquake within the boundaries of the North American and Pacific tectonic plates in 1,200 years.

2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami

Map showing the impact of the earthquake
Date	14:46:23, 11 March 2011 (+09:00) (2011-03-11T14:46:23+09:00)
Duration	5 minutes
Magnitude	8.9–9.1 MW
Depth	24.4 km (15.2 mi)
Epicenter location	38°19′19″N 142°22′08″E / 38.322°N 142.369°E / 38.322; 142.369Coordinates: 38°19′19″N 142°22′08″E / 38.322°N 142.369°E / 38.322; 142.369
Type	Megathrust earthquake
Countries or regions affected	Japan (primary) Pacific Rim (tsunami)
Total damage	Flooding and reports of major damage
Peak ground acceleration	0.35g
Tsunami	Yes
Landslides	Yes
Aftershocks	at least 215 (25 above 6.0 MW)
Casualties	more than 605 dead, 784 missing