2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami

Summary

On 11 March 2011, at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approximately six minutes, causing a tsunami. It is sometimes known in Japan as the "Great East Japan Earthquake", among other names. The disaster is often referred to as simply 3.11 (read san ten ichi-ichi in Japanese). It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake recorded in the world since modern seismography began in 1900. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that may have reached heights of up to in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture, and which, in the Sendai area, traveled at and up to inland. Residents of Sendai had only eight to ten minutes of warning, and more than a hundred evacuation sites were washed away. The snowfall which accompanied the tsunami and the freezing temperature h

Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (7)

Related publications

Related people

Related units

Related concepts (34)

On 11 March 2011, a nuclear accident occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The proximate cause of the disaster was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, whic

A tsunami ((t)suːˈnɑːmi,_(t)sʊˈ- ; from 津波, tsɯnami) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, v

An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves.

Related concepts

Related courses (4)

Related courses

Related lectures (7)

Related lectures

Impact of Insurance on Earthquake Risk Territories in Japan

Rémy Zgraggen

The subject of the present PhD thesis is the qualitative, interdisciplinary analysis of the impact of earthquake insurance on earthquake risk territories in Japan. On the one hand, the Japanese Earthquake Insurance System (JEI) will be analyzed; on the other hand, the liability insurance system for nuclear risks in Japan will be examined. The first research question (R1) focuses on the impact of insurance on earthquake risk territories, whereas the second research question (R2) concerns the adequacy and efficiency of earthquake insurance and the nuclear liability insurance system in Japan. These two research questions will be analyzed in the following two case studies: the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 in the Kobe-Osaka area, and the Tohoku Earthquake, including the following nuclear disaster at Fukushima, in 2011 in the northern part of Japan. In the first case study, the functioning and influence of the JEI will be examined, whereas in the second case study, the liability insurance system for nuclear risks in Japan will be analyzed.

EPFL2015

Seismic Rehabilitation of Deficient Steel Braced Frames with Conventional and Innovative Retrofit Techniques

Valériane Matthey

Steel concentrically braced frames (CBFs) as lateral load resisting system are common in steel construction, for their high strength and architectural versatility. However, the brace connection details have to be well designed to ensure a ductility of the frame under seismic excitation. This Master Thesis studies the behavior of a steel CBF, located in Sendai (Japan). It experienced significant damage at brace connections after the 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake in Japan. They are mainly due to the eccentricity created by the single-lap gusset plates along the long duration of the imposed ground motion hazard. The seismic response of the CBF is assessed by means of nonlinear analysis with the performance-based approach according to ASCE/SEI 41-13 (2014). As the braces do not meet any performance criteria, seismic retrofit is required. Three retrofit solutions are investigated and compared. Two of them are considered as conventional solutions. They consist to replace the braces and gusset plates, once with new Chevron braces and once with new X braces. The new braces are designed with the Capacity Design rules. The third solution modifies the CBF into a Rocking Braced Frame (RBF). This innovative high-performance system allows the column bases to uplift in order to dissipate the seismic energy and localize the damages in easily replaceable fuses to protect the primary members. The retrofit works are mainly located at the column bases. Dynamic analyses of the initial frame and its retrofits are computed for a seismic input recorded during the 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake. The peak storey drift ratio (SDR), residual SDR and story shear forces are compared. The new Chevron CBF has the worst performance of the three retrofits. New X-bracing CBF and the RBF show a similar performance, the RBF being slightly better.

2020

A comparative study of earthquake source models in high- order accurate tsunami simulations

Boris Bonev, Jan Sickmann Hesthaven

The discontinuous Galerkin method is used to solve the non-linear spherical shallow water equations with Coriolis force. The numerical method is well-balanced and takes wetting/drying into account. The two fold goal of this work is a comparative study of dynamic and static tsunami generation by seabed displacement and the careful validation of these source models. The numerical results show that the impact of the choice of seabed displacement model can be significant and that using a static approach may result in inaccurate results. For the validation of the studies, we consider measurements from satellites and buoy networks for the 2011 Tohoku event and the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman tsunami. The results confirm that the method is appropriate for large-scale tsunami simulations and early warning systems.

2019