While many of those died instantly, the East Asian nation was on edge for weeks as utility and government employees scrambled to prevent a worsening nuclear catastrophe at the Daiichi plant, located about miles kilometers north of Tokyo. Fukushima: A closer look — A deserted street near Okuma is visible from the bus window, inside the contaminated exclusion zone near the crippled nuclear power station. Fukushima: A closer look — Throughout the summer and fall, there were no longer reports of explosions or new leaks of radioactive material into the ground and sea.
But the facility still remained off limits to reporters and, for a kilometer radius around the plant, to the general public, due to the continued high levels of radiation and ongoing efforts to prevent yet more blasts and leaks.
Fukushima: A closer look — Radiation readings rose steadily as the journalists neared the plant, reaching 6. There, they put on respirator masks, adding to an ensemble of a protective suit, two pairs of gloves, two sets of plastic booties over their shoes and a radiation detector. Fukushima: A closer look — The crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station is visible through a bus window Saturday.
Fukushima: A closer look — Journalists pass a newly built sea wall next to the crippled nuclear power station. Fukushima: A closer look — Workers dressed in protective suits and masks are checked for radiation outside a building at J-Village, a soccer training complex now serving as an operation base for those battling Japan's nuclear disaster in Fukushima.
Fukushima: A closer look — A employee of the Tokyo Electric Power Company walks up stairs near temporary housing built for workers who live at J-Village, at the former soccer training complex. Fukushima: A closer look — A worker carries his belongings as he walks among the temporary housing structures at J-Village. Fukushima: A closer look — A deserted field and buildings inside the contaminated exclusion zone around the crippled nuclear power station are seen through the bus window.
Fukushima: A closer look — A deserted neighborhood inside the contaminated exclusion zone is visible through the bus window. March 11, - At p.
The earthquake causes a tsunami with foot waves that damage several nuclear reactors in the area. It is the largest earthquake ever to hit Japan. Number of people killed and missing. Read More. The combined total of confirmed deaths and missing is more than 22, nearly 20, deaths and 2, missing.
Deaths were caused by the initial earthquake and tsunami and by post-disaster health conditions. Other Facts. A microsievert mSv is an internationally recognized unit measuring radiation dosage. People are typically exposed to a total of about 1, microsieverts in one year.
The debris was not considered to be radioactive. All times and dates are local Japanese time. About an hour after the quake, waves up to 30 feet high hit the Japanese coast, sweeping away vehicles, causing buildings to collapse, and severing roads and highways.
Sixty to seventy thousand people living nearby are ordered to evacuate to shelters. March 12, - Overnight, a 6. Officials report the earthquake and tsunami have cut off the plant's electrical power, and that backup generators have been disabled by the tsunami. March 13, - People living within 10 kilometers 6. The total evacuated so far is about , So far, three units there have experienced major problems in cooling radioactive material. The residents remaining within 30 kilometers of the plant, despite an earlier evacuation order, have been ordered to stay indoors.
Officials quickly work to pump seawater into the reactor, as they have been doing with two other reactors at the same plant, and the situation is resolved. Workers scramble to cool down fuel rods at two other reactors at the plant - No. Downtown Tokyo is not included. Up to 45 million people will be affected in the rolling outages, which are scheduled to last until April.
March 15, - The third explosion at the Daiichi plant in four days damages the suppression pool of reactor No. Water continues to be injected into "pressure vessels" in order to cool down radioactive material.
March 16, - The nuclear safety agency investigates the cause of a white cloud of smoke rising above the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Plans are canceled to use helicopters to pour water onto fuel rods that may have burned after a fire there, causing a spike in radiation levels. The plume is later found to have been vapor from a spent-fuel storage pool.
March 18, - Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency raises the threat level from 4 to 5, putting it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. The areas flooded in closely matched those of a tsunami that hit Sendai in In the decade before the Tohoku earthquake, a handful of Japanese geologists had begun to recognize that a large earthquake and tsunami had struck the northern Honshu region in However, their warnings went unheeded by officials responsible for the country's earthquake hazard assessments.
Now, tsunami experts from around the world have been asked to assess the history of past tsunamis in Japan, to better predict the country's future earthquake risk. Compare the human lives lost in Sumatra and Japan. It's about 10 times less. The Tohoku earthquake struck offshore of Japan, along a subduction zone where two of Earth's tectonic plates collide. In a subduction zone, one plate slides beneath another into the mantle, the hotter layer beneath the crust. The great plates are rough and stick together, building up energy that is released as earthquakes.
East of Japan, the Pacific plate dives beneath the overriding Eurasian plate. The temblor completely released centuries of built up stress between the two tectonic plates, a recent study found. The March 11 earthquake started on a Friday at p. It was centered on the seafloor 45 miles 72 kilometers east of Tohoku, at a depth of 15 miles 24 km below the surface. The shaking lasted about six minutes.
Scientists drilled into the subduction zone soon after the earthquake and discovered a thin, slippery clay layer lining the fault. The researchers think that this clay layer allowed the two plates to slide an incredible distance, some feet 50 meters , facilitating the enormous earthquake and tsunami.
Residents of Tokyo received a minute of warning before the strong shaking hit the city, thanks to Japan's earthquake early warning system. The country's stringent seismic building codes and early warning system prevented many deaths from the earthquake, by stopping high-speed trains and factory assembly lines.
People in Japan also received texted alerts of the earthquake and tsunami warnings on their cellphones. The number of confirmed deaths is 15, as of June 10, , according to the reconstruction agency. More than 2, people are still reported missing. Less than an hour after the earthquake, the first of many tsunami waves hit Japan's coastline.
The tsunami waves reached run-up heights how far the wave surges inland above sea level of up to feet 39 meters at Miyako city and traveled inland as far as 6 miles 10 km in Sendai. The tsunami flooded an estimated area of approximately square miles square kilometers in Japan. The waves overtopped and destroyed protective tsunami seawalls at several locations.
The massive surge destroyed three-story buildings where people had gathered for safety. Near Oarai, the tsunami generated a huge whirlpool offshore, captured on video. The tsunami caused a cooling system failure at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant , which resulted in a level-7 nuclear meltdown and release of radioactive materials. The electrical power and backup generators were overwhelmed by the tsunami, and the plant lost its cooling capabilities.
The earthquake was not a factor," Titov said. Very low levels of radioactive chemicals that leaked from Fukushima have been detected along the North American coast offshore Canada and California.
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