Introduction

Prior to discussing what happened due to this earthquake, we thought it best to describe very briefly how it is that this earthquake formed. Earthquakes almost always occur near a fault line, or an intersection between two of the many plates that make up the crust of our Earth. What we consider to be an earthquake is when these consonantly moving faults that get stuck together from friction slip past each other, releasing tremendous amounts of energy. This energy then ripples thorough the crust like a sound wave, causing the jolts that we feel on the surface. Tsunamis are a great example of these earthquake waves in action, although in a slightly different regard. When earthquakes happen underwater, the movement of the plates causes the seafloor to move, displacing the massive amounts of water in the column directly above it. This sudden displacement causes waves to form, that spread and build in size until they reach a landmass or lose momentum and die out.

The most dangerous parts of earthquakes and the reason why Japan suffered from such great damage is that they are completely unpredictable. Minutes before the earthquake on March 11, no one could have been any the wiser as to what was about to happen, however as soon as the clocks struck 2:46:24 pm local time, their lives were forever changed. Sure they did have some time to gather there things when the tsunami alarms began going off, but there was nothing that could really been done to hamper what was coming. As with most water-based earthquakes, the quake itself did very minimal damage if any, the resulting waves however, destroyed everything they could when they hit coastlines an hour after the quake struck. These waves in turn caused almost 210 billion dollars in the first 9 months, a number that is still growing to this day. The most recent damage estimates were released in February of this year by the Japanese National Police Agency. They found that the earthquake and tsunami resulted in over "15,884 deaths, 6,148 injured, and 2,633 people missing across twenty prefectures, as well as 127,290 buildings totally collapsed, with a further 272,788 buildings 'half collapsed', and another 747,989 buildings partially damaged." These staggering numbers truly help to show how this was truly the most destructive natural disaster to date, but they dont even paint the entire picture. The nuclear fallout from the meltdown of the Fukushima reactor spread across most of the ocean contaminating more than we can even begin to comprehend, a consequence that we still do not truly know the repercussions of.