This week is the fourth anniversary of Japan’s disastrous Tohoku earthquake and the massive tidal wave that fractured the ageing Fukushima nuclear power facilities, leading to a shutdown of Japan’s 48 nuclear power plants on top of the six decommissioned at Fukushima. Finally rated at a magnitude of 9.0, the earthquake was the most powerful recorded in Japan and the third most powerful in the world since modern measurements have been taken in 1900. Over 18,000 people perished or were lost, most of them in the tsunami that followed the quake. The tsunami reached heights of over 40 metres and washed through three to four storey buildings as it swept cars, trucks, boats and planes away on its path inland. The tsunami inundated the Fukushima nuclear facility causing level 7 meltdowns at three reactors and requiring evacuations within a radius of up to 20 kilometres. The earthquake shifted Honshu, Japan’s main island, 2.4 metres to the east towards the Americas and its force moved the earth on its axis by an estimated 10–25 centimetres.
This week is the fourth anniversary of Japan’s disastrous Tohoku earthquake and the massive tidal wave that fractured the ageing Fukushima nuclear power facilities, leading to a shutdown of Japan’s 48 nuclear power plants on top of the six decommissioned at Fukushima. Finally rated at a magnitude of 9.0, the earthquake was the most powerful recorded in Japan and the third most powerful in the world since modern measurements have been taken in 1900. Over 18,000 people perished or were lost, most of them in the tsunami that followed the quake. The tsunami reached heights of over 40 metres and washed through three to four storey buildings as it swept cars, trucks, boats and planes away on its path inland. The tsunami inundated the Fukushima nuclear facility causing level 7 meltdowns at three reactors and requiring evacuations within a radius of up to 20 kilometres. The earthquake shifted Honshu, Japan’s main island, 2.4 metres to the east towards the Americas and its force moved the earth on its axis by an estimated 10–25 centimetres.