It’s been a busy tectonic month, and things aren’t about to chill down. A massive 7.9 magnitude Earthquake has just hit the Northern coast of Japan, triggering a more than four meter tall tsunami that wiped down cars and other property along the coastline, but it’s still unclear how many people were injured or killed. What is also unclear, and shocking to me, is that in the rush of events, some sources reported the earthquake as having a magnitude of 8.9, which would make the earthquake 10 times more powerful.

The national broadcaster, NHK, showed footage of dozens of cars and ferries being washed up on the beach, but additional details are still unavailable. The Japanese Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning for the entire Pacific Japanese coast, and residents in the coastal areas have been urged to evacuate and more deeper inland, to higher grounds.

The earthquake, which took place in the Earth’s crust, struck about 125 km off the northern coast, at an estimated depth of 10 km, and is expected to generate further tsunamis with waves of 6-7 meters, especially in the Miyagi Prefecture, in northeastern Japan, where the earthquake’s intensity was 7.

Earthquake’s magnitude and intensity should not be confused, as the magnitude measures the amount of energy released by the earthquake, so it’s the same for everybody in the world, while intensity refers to the felt intensity and damage caused by an earthquake, so this varies from area to area for the same event.

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