Cancel

gear Push settings

bars

homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake hits Japan, creates tsunami

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. […]

Mihai Andrei
March 11, 2011 @ 3:18 am

share Share

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.

share Share

It Looks Like a Ruby But This Is Actually the Rarest Kind of Diamond on Earth

One of Earth’s rarest gems finally reveals its secrets at the Smithsonian.

Fish Feel Intense Pain For 20 Minutes After Catch — So Why Are We Letting Them Suffocate?

Brutal and mostly invisible, the way we kill fish involves prolonged suffering.

Scientists Used Lasers To Finally Explain How Tiny Dunes Form -- And This Might Hold Clues to Other Worlds

Decoding how sand grains move and accumulate on Earth can also help scientists understand dune formation on Mars.

Identical Dinosaur Prints Found on Opposite Sides of the Atlantic Ocean 3,700 Miles Apart

Millions of years ago, the Atlantic Ocean split these continents but not before dinosaurs walked across them.

Scientists Tracked a Mysterious 200-Year-Old Global Cooling Event to a Chain of Four Volcanoes

A newly identified eruption rewrites the volcanic history of the 19th century.

Scientists Invented a Way to Store Data in Plastic Molecules and It Could Someday Replace Hard Drives

What if your next hard drive wasn’t a box, but a string of molecules? Synthetic polymers promises to revolutionize data storage.

Scientists Found Traces of Gold Leaking from Earth’s Core

Traces of ruthenium in Hawaiian lava reveal long-suspected core–mantle leakage.

This beautiful rock holds evidence of tsunamis from 115 million years ago

The waves that shook the world 115 million years ago left behind an amber trail.

Meet Mosura fentoni, the Bug-Eyed Cambrian Weirdo with Three Eyes and Gills in Its Tail

Evolution went strong in this one.

Antarctica has a huge, completely hidden mountain range. New data reveals its birth over 500 million years ago

Have you ever imagined what Antarctica looks like beneath its thick blanket of ice? Hidden below are rugged mountains, valleys, hills and plains. Some peaks, like the towering Transantarctic Mountains, rise above the ice. But others, like the mysterious and ancient Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains in the middle of East Antarctica, are completely buried. The Gamburtsev […]