Abstract
The March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake of Mw 9.0 was a surprise to seismologists in Japan and globally. This earthquake and the resultant tsunami claimed about 20,000 human lives and caused wide spread damage to structures. The tsunami also caused a number of nuclear accidents. This earthquake gave rise to a global debate on the anticipated maximum size of earthquakes and the safety of nuclear power plants globally. This chapter includes a discussion on the Mw 9.0 earthquake, an in-depth analysis of the generation and propagation of the tsunami and a brief description of the damage to nuclear power plants and the future plans for protection.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Cyranoski D (2012) After the deluge. Nature 483:141–143
Geller R (2011) Shake-up for Japanese seismology. Nature 472:407–409
Lay T, Kanamori H (2011) Insights from the 2011 Japan earthquake. Phys Today, pp 33–39
Maeda T, Takashi F, Shinichi S, Masanao S (2011) Significant tsunami observed at ocean-bottom pressure gauges during the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake. Earth Planets Space 63:803–808
Minoura K, Imamura F, Sugawara D, Kono Y, Iwashita T (2001) The 869 Jogan tsunami deposit and recurrence of large-scale tsunami on the coast of Northeast Japan. J Nat Disaster Sci 23:83–88
Newman AV (2011) Hidden depths. Nature 474:441–443
Ozawa S, Takuya N, Hisashi S, Tomokazu K, Mikio T, Tetsuro I (2011) Coseismic and postseismic slip of the 2011 magnitude-9 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. Nature 475:373–376
Sato M, Saito H, Ishikawa T, Matsumoto Y, Fujita M, Mochizuki M, Asada A (2011) Restoration of interplate locking after the 2005 Off-Miyagi prefecture earthquake, detected by GPS/acoustic seafloor geodetic observation. Geophys Res Lett 38: (L01312) doi:10.1029/2010GL045689
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gupta, H.K., Gahalaut, V.K. (2013). 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake and Tsunami. In: Three Great Tsunamis: Lisbon (1755), Sumatra-Andaman (2004) and Japan (2011). SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6576-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6576-4_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-6575-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6576-4
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)