This Day in World History
March 11, 2011
Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster Strike Japan
Japan, situated on the Ring of Fire on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, has suffered some major earthquakes over the years. However, nothing before compared to the triple disaster of March 11, 2011: a massive earthquake followed by powerful tsunamis which led to a serious nuclear accident.
The horrors began shortly before three in the afternoon local time with a 9.0-magnitude earthquake. Its epicenter was nearly 20 miles below the floor of the Pacific Ocean about 80 miles east of the Japanese city of Sendai. The quake was one of the most powerful ever recorded, and the strongest to hit this region of Japan.
Map prepared by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration depicting the tsunami wave height model for the Pacific Ocean following the March 11, 2011, earthquake off Sendai, Japan. Source: NOAA Center for Tsunami Research.
The quake unleashed several tsunamis, or tidal waves, that moved as fast as 500 miles an hour in all directions — most destructively to the nearby northeastern coast of Japan’s Honshu island. Waves as high as 33 feet high crashed into towns and cities along the coast, washing away anything in their path. One wave reportedly reached as far inland as 6 miles.
Several nuclear plants are located in northern Honshu. Most shut down automatically when the quake occurred, but the powerful tsunamis damaged the backup power systems at a plant in Fukushima. As a result, cooling systems shut down, and nuclear fuel overheated and later caught fire. The fire released radiation in the air, and the use of seawater to try to cool the reactors led to radiation contaminating the sea. Japanese officials had to ban people from a zone up to 18 miles around the damaged reactors, scene of the second worst nuclear accident in history.
In the end, the triple disaster cost Japan nearly 20,000 dead — mostly from the tsunamis — more than 130,000 forced from their homes, more than $300 billion in damage, and a severe jolt to the economy.
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“Just one month after the earthquake, it is far from clear what sort of history is being and will be made.”
By Andrew Gordon
On the afternoon of March 11, 2011, people in Japan experienced the most powerful earthquake in the recorded history of the archipelago, and the fifth most powerful ever recorded. Measured at magnitude 9, with an epicenter just off the coast of Miyagi prefecture in northeast Japan, this earthquake unleashed one hundred times the destructive force of the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, which took well over one hundred thousand lives. Thanks in large part to strict building codes and technologies designed to allow high-rise buildings to absorb the shocks, the destruction of homes and offices was relatively modest in proportion to the immensity of the earthquake. But the unprecedented tsunami that quickly followed sent walls of water of thirty feet or more against a vast swath of the coastline, overwhelming seawalls designed to withstand the strongest imaginable waves. The destruction of the tsunami left those who survived scarcely able to describe what they saw: the obliteration of entire towns to the extent that it was impossible to see any trace of the shape of the cities that stood there. Compounding the disaster, the tsunami destroyed the cooling system of a nuclear power facility located right on the coast of Fukushima prefecture, creating a nightmare scenario of explosions, a partial meltdown of fuel rods, and the release of radiation into the air and water. The immediate loss of life from the nuclear disaster was modest, and hopefully the long-term impact of the radiation releases will be as well, but as of this writing, the plant’s radiation is not fully contained. Also as of this writing, with so many victims either buried or swept to sea, the toll of the dead is not fully known. It will certainly exceed thirty thousand.
At a press conference on March 13, and two weeks later in a speech to parliament, Japan’s Prime Minister, Kan Naoto, called the compound disasters of March 11 “our nation’s severest crisis” since the end of World War II. As if to ratify that assessment, on March 16 Emperor Akihito delivered an unprecedented nationwide televised message. This was the first imperial broadcast on an occasion of crisis since August 1945, when the current monarch’s father, Emperor Hirohito, delivered his famous radio broadcast announcing Japan’s surrender. Indeed, Akihito’s call on people to “never give up hope and take good care of themselves as they live through the days ahead” softly echoed his father’s call on people to “endure the unendurable” in 1945.
Although World War II was a disaster of incomparably greater impact and extent, it is no exaggeration to call this the most severe crisis to face Japan since that time. It is arguably the greatest compound of natural and man-made disaster ever to strike an advanced industrial society (entirely man-made disasters such as war are another matter). Both for Japan, and in important ways for the wider world, this disaster marks an extended moment of history-in-the-making. In areas ranging from the globally connected character of economic supply and production, energy policy, strategies of urban and regional planning, demography, and the self-understandings produced by religions and all manner of cultural forms, the impact of these events will be felt for many years.
Just one month after the earthquake, it is far from clear what sort of history is being and will be made. It is possible, however, as a historian, to look back at the near-term past to identify a mode of thinking that links this disaster to other recent crises. That mode of thinking can be summed up in the simple phrase “beyond ima
