The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku, often referred to in Japan as the Great East Japan Earthquake and also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, and the 3.11 Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on 11 March 2011, with the epicentre approximately 70 kilometres east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and the hypocenter at an underwater depth of approximately 30 km. It was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and the fifth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture, and which, in the Sendai area, travelled up to 10 km inland. The earthquake moved Honshu 2.4 m east and shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm and 25 cm. On 12 September 2012, a Japanese National Police Agency report confirmed 15,883 deaths, 6,145 injured, and 2,671 people missing across twenty prefectures, as well as 129,225 buildings totally collapsed, with a further 254,204 buildings 'half collapsed', and another 691,766 buildings partially damaged. The earthquake and tsunami also caused extensive and severe structural damage in north-eastern Japan, including heavy damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and a dam collapse. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, "In the 65 years after the end of World War II, this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan." Around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.5 million without water. Wikipedia [ - ]

The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku, often referred to in Japan as the Great... [ + ]