Japan Tsunami in Japan 2011 March 11th
A massive 8.9 magnitude quake hit northeast Japan on Friday, causing many injuries, fires and a four-metre (13-ft) tsunami along parts of the country's coastline, NHK television and witnesses reported.
There were several strong aftershocks and a warning of a 10-metre tsunami following the quake, which also caused buildings to shake violently in the capital Tokyo.
At least three people were reported dead, one hit by a collapsing wall at a Honda factory. Several people are buried in landslide.
TV pictures showed a vast wall of water carrying buildings and debris across a large swathe of coastal farmland.
Public broadcaster NHK showed flames and black smoke billowing from a building in Odaiba, a Tokyo suburb, and bullet trains to the north of the country were halted.
Black smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama's Isogo area. TV footage showed boats, cars and trucks floating in water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. An overpass, location unknown, appeared to have collapsed into the water.
Kyodo news agency said there were reports of fires in the city of Sendai in the northeast.
"The building shook for what seemed a long time and many people in the newsroom grabbed their helmets and some got under their desks," Reuters correspondent Linda Sieg said in Tokyo.
"It was probably the worst I have felt since I came to Japan more than 20 years ago."
Passengers on a subway line in Tokyo screamed and grabbed other passengers' hands. The shaking was so bad it was hard to stand, said Reuters reporter Mariko Katsumura.
Hundreds of office workers and shoppers spilled into Hitotsugi street, a shopping street in Akasaka in downtown Tokyo.
Household goods ranging from toilet paper to clingfilm were flung into the street from outdoor shelves in front of a drugstore.
Crowds gathered in front of televisions in a shop next to the drugstore for details. After the shaking from the first quake subsided, crowds were watching and pointing to construction cranes on an office building up the street with voices saying, "They're still shaking!", "Are they going to fall?"
Asagi Machida, 27, a web designer in Tokyo, sprinted from a coffee shop when the quake hit.
"The images from the New Zealand earthquake are still fresh in my mind so I was really scared. I couldn't believe such a big earthquake was happening in Tokyo."
The US Geological Survey earlier verified a magnitude of 7.9 at a depth of 15.1 miles and located the quake 81 miles east of Sendai, on the main island of Honshu. It later upgraded it to 8.8.
A police car drove down Hitotsugi Street, lights flashing, announcing through a bullhorn that there was still a danger of shaking.
The Tokyo stock market extended its losses after the quake was announced. The central bank said it would do everything to ensure financial stability.
Japan's northeast Pacific coast, called Sanriku, has suffered from quakes and tsunamis in the past and a 7.2 quake struck on Wednesday. In 1933, a magnitude 8.1 quake in the area killed more than 3,000 people. Last year fishing facilities were damaged after by a tsunami caused by a strong tremor in Chile.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
There are chances of more tsunami following a huge quake which struck off the north coast of Japan, a Japanese government agency said.
10-metre tsunami slams into Japan's coast
A 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami slammed into the coast off the city of Sendai in northeast Japan on Friday after an 8.9-magnitude quake struck offshore, Japanese media reported.
TV footage showed cars and houses being swept along in the water. The runways at Sendai Airport were submerged, with dozens of people seen on the roof of the terminal building.
Kyodo news reported that a seven-metre tsunami had reached Fukushima prefecture.
Indonesia issues tsunami alert
Indonesia on Friday warned people living in its eastern areas -- including Papua, Maluku and North Sulawesi -- to be on guard for tsunamis set off by a major quake off Japan.
"The arrival time of any waves that may be generated is expected at 8:00 pm local time (1100 GMT)," according to official text message received by AFP.
A massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit Japan on Friday, unleashing a monster 10-metre high tsunami that sent ships crashing into the shore and carried cars through the streets of coastal towns.
Felt in Beijing
The powerful earthquake that struck Friday off Japan's Pacific coast was felt as far away as the Chinese capital of Beijing, 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) to the west, residents said.
Workers in some office towers reported via chat sites that they had clearly felt the tremor, although no injuries or damage was immediately reported.
The China Earthquake Administration said it had received reports from residents across the city who also claimed to have felt it.
The quake was not noticeable in AFP's Beijing bureau.
What is a tsunami?
A once-exotic word that has now entered the everyday lexicon, a tsunami refers to a shock of water that spreads through the sea, usually after a sub-sea floor quake.
A section of seabed is thrust up or driven down by violent movement of the Earth's crust.
The rift displaces vast quantities of water that move as waves, able to cover enormous distances over open water, sometimes at the speed of a jet plane.
An 8.9-magnitude quake off Japan's northern coast on Friday generated a 10-metre (33 feet) tsunami that picked up ships and dashed them into coastal towns.
Buildings and vehicles were carried away as the huge wall of water swept inland.
The word "tsunami" comes from the Japanese words for "harbour" and "wave".
At their point of generation, tsunamis have a relatively small wave height, with peaks far apart.
As the waves approach the shore they are compressed by the shelving of the sea floor, reducing the distance between the peaks and vastly increasing the height.
To those on the shore, the first sign of something amiss can be the retreat of the sea, which is followed by the arrival of large waves.
"The sea was driven back, and its waters flowed away to such an extent that the deep seabed was laid bare and many kinds of sea creatures could be seen," wrote Roman historian Ammianus Marcellus, awed at a tsunami that struck the then-thriving port of Alexandria in 365 AD.
"Huge masses of water flowed back when least expected, and now overwhelmed and killed many thousands of people... Some great ships were hurled by the fury of the waves onto the rooftops, and others were thrown up to two miles (three kilometres) from the shore."
Several factors determine the height and destructiveness of a tsunami.
They include the size of the quake, the volume of displaced water, the topography of the sea floor as the waves race to the coast and whether there are natural obstacles that dampen the shock.
Destruction of protective mangroves and coral reefs and the building of homes or hotels on exposed beaches are fingered as leading causes of high death tolls from tsunamis.
Large quakes are the main drivers of tsunamis, but the phenomenon can also be sparked by other cataclysmic events, such as volcanic eruptions and even landslides.
In 1883, a volcano shattered the Pacific island of Krakatoa, causing a blast so loud that it could be heard 4,500 kilometres away, followed by a tsunami that killed some 30,000 people.
The tsunami of December 2004 in the Indian Ocean was caused by a monstrous 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
It released energy equivalent to 23,000 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Some 220,000 people in 11 nations were killed, many of them thousands of kilometres from the epicentre.
The Pacific Ocean is particularly prone to earthquakes and therefore to tsunamis.
But research has found that, over the millennia, tsunamis have occurred in many parts of the world, including the Atlantic and Mediterranean. A global monitoring network, overseen by the UN, has been set in place to alert areas at risk.
A massive 8.9 magnitude quake hit northeast Japan on Friday, causing many injuries, fires and a four-metre (13-ft) tsunami along parts of the country's coastline, NHK television and witnesses reported.
There were several strong aftershocks and a warning of a 10-metre tsunami following the quake, which also caused buildings to shake violently in the capital Tokyo.
At least three people were reported dead, one hit by a collapsing wall at a Honda factory. Several people are buried in landslide.
TV pictures showed a vast wall of water carrying buildings and debris across a large swathe of coastal farmland.
Public broadcaster NHK showed flames and black smoke billowing from a building in Odaiba, a Tokyo suburb, and bullet trains to the north of the country were halted.
Black smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama's Isogo area. TV footage showed boats, cars and trucks floating in water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. An overpass, location unknown, appeared to have collapsed into the water.
Kyodo news agency said there were reports of fires in the city of Sendai in the northeast.
"The building shook for what seemed a long time and many people in the newsroom grabbed their helmets and some got under their desks," Reuters correspondent Linda Sieg said in Tokyo.
"It was probably the worst I have felt since I came to Japan more than 20 years ago."
Passengers on a subway line in Tokyo screamed and grabbed other passengers' hands. The shaking was so bad it was hard to stand, said Reuters reporter Mariko Katsumura.
Hundreds of office workers and shoppers spilled into Hitotsugi street, a shopping street in Akasaka in downtown Tokyo.
Household goods ranging from toilet paper to clingfilm were flung into the street from outdoor shelves in front of a drugstore.
Crowds gathered in front of televisions in a shop next to the drugstore for details. After the shaking from the first quake subsided, crowds were watching and pointing to construction cranes on an office building up the street with voices saying, "They're still shaking!", "Are they going to fall?"
Asagi Machida, 27, a web designer in Tokyo, sprinted from a coffee shop when the quake hit.
"The images from the New Zealand earthquake are still fresh in my mind so I was really scared. I couldn't believe such a big earthquake was happening in Tokyo."
The US Geological Survey earlier verified a magnitude of 7.9 at a depth of 15.1 miles and located the quake 81 miles east of Sendai, on the main island of Honshu. It later upgraded it to 8.8.
A police car drove down Hitotsugi Street, lights flashing, announcing through a bullhorn that there was still a danger of shaking.
The Tokyo stock market extended its losses after the quake was announced. The central bank said it would do everything to ensure financial stability.
Japan's northeast Pacific coast, called Sanriku, has suffered from quakes and tsunamis in the past and a 7.2 quake struck on Wednesday. In 1933, a magnitude 8.1 quake in the area killed more than 3,000 people. Last year fishing facilities were damaged after by a tsunami caused by a strong tremor in Chile.
Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.
There are chances of more tsunami following a huge quake which struck off the north coast of Japan, a Japanese government agency said.
10-metre tsunami slams into Japan's coast
A 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami slammed into the coast off the city of Sendai in northeast Japan on Friday after an 8.9-magnitude quake struck offshore, Japanese media reported.
TV footage showed cars and houses being swept along in the water. The runways at Sendai Airport were submerged, with dozens of people seen on the roof of the terminal building.
Kyodo news reported that a seven-metre tsunami had reached Fukushima prefecture.
Indonesia issues tsunami alert
Indonesia on Friday warned people living in its eastern areas -- including Papua, Maluku and North Sulawesi -- to be on guard for tsunamis set off by a major quake off Japan.
"The arrival time of any waves that may be generated is expected at 8:00 pm local time (1100 GMT)," according to official text message received by AFP.
A massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit Japan on Friday, unleashing a monster 10-metre high tsunami that sent ships crashing into the shore and carried cars through the streets of coastal towns.
Felt in Beijing
The powerful earthquake that struck Friday off Japan's Pacific coast was felt as far away as the Chinese capital of Beijing, 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles) to the west, residents said.
Workers in some office towers reported via chat sites that they had clearly felt the tremor, although no injuries or damage was immediately reported.
The China Earthquake Administration said it had received reports from residents across the city who also claimed to have felt it.
The quake was not noticeable in AFP's Beijing bureau.
What is a tsunami?
A once-exotic word that has now entered the everyday lexicon, a tsunami refers to a shock of water that spreads through the sea, usually after a sub-sea floor quake.
A section of seabed is thrust up or driven down by violent movement of the Earth's crust.
The rift displaces vast quantities of water that move as waves, able to cover enormous distances over open water, sometimes at the speed of a jet plane.
An 8.9-magnitude quake off Japan's northern coast on Friday generated a 10-metre (33 feet) tsunami that picked up ships and dashed them into coastal towns.
Buildings and vehicles were carried away as the huge wall of water swept inland.
The word "tsunami" comes from the Japanese words for "harbour" and "wave".
At their point of generation, tsunamis have a relatively small wave height, with peaks far apart.
As the waves approach the shore they are compressed by the shelving of the sea floor, reducing the distance between the peaks and vastly increasing the height.
To those on the shore, the first sign of something amiss can be the retreat of the sea, which is followed by the arrival of large waves.
"The sea was driven back, and its waters flowed away to such an extent that the deep seabed was laid bare and many kinds of sea creatures could be seen," wrote Roman historian Ammianus Marcellus, awed at a tsunami that struck the then-thriving port of Alexandria in 365 AD.
"Huge masses of water flowed back when least expected, and now overwhelmed and killed many thousands of people... Some great ships were hurled by the fury of the waves onto the rooftops, and others were thrown up to two miles (three kilometres) from the shore."
Several factors determine the height and destructiveness of a tsunami.
They include the size of the quake, the volume of displaced water, the topography of the sea floor as the waves race to the coast and whether there are natural obstacles that dampen the shock.
Destruction of protective mangroves and coral reefs and the building of homes or hotels on exposed beaches are fingered as leading causes of high death tolls from tsunamis.
Large quakes are the main drivers of tsunamis, but the phenomenon can also be sparked by other cataclysmic events, such as volcanic eruptions and even landslides.
In 1883, a volcano shattered the Pacific island of Krakatoa, causing a blast so loud that it could be heard 4,500 kilometres away, followed by a tsunami that killed some 30,000 people.
The tsunami of December 2004 in the Indian Ocean was caused by a monstrous 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
It released energy equivalent to 23,000 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Some 220,000 people in 11 nations were killed, many of them thousands of kilometres from the epicentre.
The Pacific Ocean is particularly prone to earthquakes and therefore to tsunamis.
But research has found that, over the millennia, tsunamis have occurred in many parts of the world, including the Atlantic and Mediterranean. A global monitoring network, overseen by the UN, has been set in place to alert areas at risk.
1`11