The 2011 East Japan Earthquake Bulletin of the Tohoku Geographical Association
http://tohokugeo.jp/disaster/disaster-e.html
9 April 2011, updated 24 March 2012

Overview of the 2011 East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster
Takehiko TAKANO, Professor, Tohoku Gakuin University
Email: tktk(a)izcc.tohoku-gakuin.ac.jp

Areal extent of affected area, their multiple damage by the 2011 East Japan Disaster is presented,
including crisis of nuclear accident and extensive activities for help from the world.

1. Preface
On JST 2:46 pm, March 11, 2011, a mega earthquake with Richter scale of magnitude 9.0
struck off the Pacific coast of east Japan which shook much part of east Japan with the JMA
Seismic Intensity of 6 or more; then large tsunami arrived at the coast of the Pacific several times.
USGS reported that “this magnitude places the earthquake as the fourth largest in the world since
1900 and the largest in Japan since modern instrumental recordings began 130 years ago.”★1
It was one of the most intense natural phenomena in Japan’s history.

Owing to the phenomena,

Japan has faced severe damages in unprecedented vast area at once.

It was definitely a“millennium” class disaster in Japan because not only of its severity, but also of its areal extent
where appeared every type of expected disasters in earthquake and tsunami.
In this beginning chapter, an overview of the disastrous phenomena and an outline of resulted
damages will be described, hoping the readers across the world to know about the situation in the
Pacific coast of east Japan and how it had been.

2. Earthquake, tsunami and the extent of affected area
Power of the East Japan Earthquake can be grasped firstly by the spatial distribution of seismic
intensity reported by Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) shown in Fig.1.

In JMA’s Seismic

Intensity, grade of 5+ and over are assumed to have damages for houses and infrastructures.★2 In
the East Japan Earthquake, grade 5+ and more were measured in vast areas in the Pacific side ofthe eastern half of Honshu Island, of which maximum intensity observed was grade 7 at thenorthern part of Miyagi Prefecture.

Just after the earthquake, “tsunami alert” for the entire

Pacific coast and “major tsunami alert” with expected height was 3～6m were announced foreastern Honshu (Fig.2).

But actually tsunami reached far higher (Fig.3) and deeper to inland area

than any existed expectations and experiences, resulted in the unprecedented severe inundation
mainly in the Pacific coastline of eastern Honshu Island.
1Fig.1JMA Scale (Shindo)

Fig 2

Alerted tsunami heightSource: Japan Meteorological Agency (rewritten by the author)

Fig.3

Tsunami height felt at various observation points

Columns with vertical arrow indicate the case where the observation facility was broken by the first wave, and higher
wave could be expected to come afterwards. Source: Japan Meteorological Agency.

2

Such

catastrophic

phenomenacausedTable 1

Types of the disasters appearedenormous damage especially in the Pacific coastofeastern

Honshu,andextensive

relatedinfluence in whole Japan and the world.

One ofthe most remarkable specialties of the March 11
Earthquake and Tsunami disaster should be such“extensiveness” of the damaged area.
phenomena

inevitablycausedaThe

seriesofexpected of disasters depending on the local
conditions as shown in Table 1.

Such“complexity “of the multiple damages should be
the next distinctiveness of the disaster.

3. Human and housing damage
The East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami caused complex of disasters is known to have followed
by about 470,000 individuals evacuated in maximum (as of March 13), 19,824 death or missing
persons, and 300,400 totally or severely damaged houses (both as of October 11).

These numbers

were enough rated as one of the second largest disasters in Japan’s modern history, followed Kanto
great earthquake disaster in 1923 (Table 2).
Table 2Major earthquake in Japan after modern age

Source : Chronological Science Table（理科年表）etc.

The damages were so devastating and widespread that the total damage is unsettled.
municipalities are still counting the number of casualties and missing persons.
3

Some

But some maps ofhuman and housing damages three weeks after the Earthquake and Tsunami can give us a enoughinformation as for where the most severely affected area was (Fig.4~6).

These figures areshowing that damages appeared predominantly in the Pacific side of northeastern Honshu Island
including three prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, which obviously tell us the third
distinctive characteristics of the disaster is the disaster caused huge tsunami followed earthquake.

Fig.4

houses destroyed

Fig.5

Casualties

data : National Police Agency, April 1, 2011

Fig.6

Evacuee“NPS” indicates “Nuclear Power Station”.

Such characteristics of the disaster are more clearly shownin Fig.7 depicted by more local scale with identifiable
municipality, using the name lists issued by prefecture orprefectural police of these three prefectures.

The figure

indicates most of the victims were found in municipalities
along the Pacific coast.★3

4. Nuclear Accident
As appeared in Fig. 6 and 7 in advance, the accident of
nuclear power plants was another shocking disastrous event,which had given continuing impacts not only nationwide but
also worldwide.

It was caused by the unexpected height oftsunami which flooded the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power
Station located approximately 200km north of Tokyo and
100km south of Sendai about one hour after the earthquake
It followed a series of critical events that all emergency
power generators were halted by flooded seawater, and all
Fig.7 Casualties (March 29)

4cooling functions of nuclear reactors were broken, resulted in severe crisis of meltdown of nuclear
fuels, explosions of the plant buildings, and leakage of radioactive matters to the environment.
The monitoring of the radioactivity revealed a distribution of pollution and the densely
contaminated area near the Station and northeastern area from it (Fig.8).

Fig.8 Yearly accumulative dose (mSv) estimatedby field monitoring from March 11 to

Fig.9 Evacuation area around the Fukushima

April 21

Daiichi Nuclear Power Station☆：Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station

source : http://www.gsi.go.jp/common/000060521.pdf

source : http://www.mext.go.jp (rewritten by the author)(rewritten by the author)

All residents within 20 km radius and much of residents between 20~30 km radius from thestation were forced to evacuate outside the radius.

Therefore, most of evacuee from otherprefecture shown in Fig.6 indicates people escaping from the polluted area to other prefectures.
The Fukushima nuclear crisis was followed by the evacuation order by national government.★4
By April 21, the area where every inhabitants should be forced or encouraged to evacuate were
designated, and on June 30, several spots were designated as the place encouraged to evacuate.
These designation are shown in Fig.9.

Inside of 20km radius, no body could enter freely and theretrieval and confirmation of bodies were delayed.
Such unexpected events plunged the region in critical situation, as well as declined theconfidence in nuclear power technology in the world.

Though a designation of ”ready toevacuated area” with safety level of pollution was canceled after October, 2011, least inhabitant
have returned there.★5 It may take far longer years than we assume now for the region to recoveractually.
55. Damages for infrastructure

Table 3

By the East Japan Earthquake andDamaged value (billion yen) estimated by the
Cabinet Office (June, 24, 2011)

Tsunami and some of aftershocks,
much

of

structuresforpeople’s

everyday lives, public services andindustries

ineasternenormous

damages.

Honshuhad

The cabinet

office estimates the total value of thedamages reach 16,900 billion yen
except for the nuclear accident related
damage. Its outline is shown in Table 3.
After the earthquake, power cut was
happened in vast area of Tohoku andeastern Kanto.

Total number ofhouseholds lost electricity reached 4.4
million in Tohoku, and 4.05million in
Kanto

area

just

after

the

source : http://www.bousai.go.jp/oshirase/h23/110624-1kisya.pdf

disaster.

Although many of them were recovered in few days except for the severely destroyed coastal area
by tsunami, restriction for the power supply was continued until end of summer, 2011.
As for the transportation structures, many cracks and bumps appeared in national roads andhighways in Kanto and Tohoku area.

Especially, in national route 45 running along the Pacificcoast of Tohoku, 69 sections were closed owing to the severe damages including bridge falls.
Sinkansen got damages in 1,200 spots by the main quake on March 11 and in 550 spots by the mostpowerful aftershocks on April 7.

Though the arterial routes recovered their minimum functions

in few days, there remains broken railroads in the coastal area severely destroyed by tsunami.
Almost every port located in the Pacific coast in eastern Kanto and Tohoku stopped its operation,owing to land subsidence, floating and deposited debris, and severe damages on loading facilities,
wharfs and seawalls.

Just after the tsunami, Aomori was the only available port.

Many of themain transportation related infrastructures were recovered, but as for Sanriku coast, many of thefishing ports and some railroad lines have not recovered even now (as of March, 2012).
Vast damages on the transportation structure caused the disruption of distribution systems or theso-called “logistics” in the Pacific side of eastern Honshu, resulting extreme shortage of thenecessary commodities there.
damaged area.

Especially shortage of the oil was a emergent problem to help the

To solve such challenged situation quickly, national government took a tactics

named “skewer teeth”, where the inland vertical artery was recovered at first, then some horizontal
routes accessible to the severely damaged coastal area were opened.
6

In addition, oils were carried

by tank trains using the passable railroad along the Japan Sea.
As for the telecommunication, telephone services including mobile phone were disrupted in vast
area in eastern Honshu, owing to physical destruction of the facilities in tsunami affected area, andemergency control operated by the telecom companies.

In such situation, internet services

relatively kept availability in the area basic infrastructure could escape from severe damage.

It

proved that internet could play a important role in a critical situation of disaster.

7. Damages for industries
1) private companies
Above mentioned enormous damages gave significant influence on the various industrial
activities in the affected area.

According to a survey conducted just after the earthquake by the

Teikoku Data Bank Co.(TDB), one of the leading survey company for the activities of private
enterprises, most of private companies in Japan got damage from the disaster irrespective of theregion, but in eastern Honshu including Tohoku and Kanto ratio of the damaged companies
reached more than 80% (Table 4).
Table 4 Influence to the private companies

survey conducted by Teikoku Data Bank Co. from March 23 to 31, 2011source : http://www.tdb.co.jp/report/watching/press/pdf/keiki_w1103.pdf

Table 5 Situation of companies incoastal area of Tohoku

TDB published a result of another filed survey
conducted on June, 2011, reporting that 2,070 companies
which was about 40% of the total in tsunami affected
coastal area of Tohoku remained shut down, including
1,632 of lost companies shown by “unable to interview”
in Table 5.
Those results show severe situation of the privatecompanies in tsunami affected costal area in Tohoku.
7

http://www.tdb.co.jp/report/watching/press/pdf/

2）） Primary industries
Primary industries also suffered from significant damage especially in the tsunami affected
coastal area in Tohoku.

As for the fishery, almost all fishing ports and facilities of aquaculture

there were severely devastated by the earthquake and following tsunami (Table 6).

The fisheryservice industries including fish markets, ice makers, cold storages, boat repairing docks,
fishermen’s rest houses, shipping agents, and marine products processing factories located at major
fishing ports such as Miyako, Kesennuma, Onagawa, and Ishinomaki were mostly destroyed if not
flooded away.
Table 6

Damages for fishing ports and fishing boats

source :http://www.jfa.maff.go.jp/j/press/kikaku/pdf/110628-02.pdf（水産復興マスタープラン）

Damages for agriculture was predominant in Miyagi Prefecture as shown in Table 7, wheretsunami running up to 5km from the coast line,
flooding way entire coastal settlements and carrying
debris with sea water over the fertile paddy fields.

Table 7

Estimated flooded area (ha)of the cultivated land

Redevelopment plan for the integration of port
facilities into selected fishing ports and theconversion to intensive agriculture have been
carried into action.
3）） Tourist business
Tourist business suffered significantly fromnot only the direct damage of earthquake andtsunami, but also the indirect damage of nuclear
accident.

In Iwate Prefecture, the number ofcancellations of hotels or inns reached 240
8

http://www.maff.go.jp/j/tokei/saigai/pdf/shinsai.pdf

thousands, and in Fukushima Prefecture it reached 680 thousands during one month after thedisaster..

According to Japan Tourist Agency, cancellation reached 170 thousands even in thearea other than Tohoku and Kanto during same period.★6
Tourists from foreign countries also sharply decreased after the disaster.

On March 2011 thenumber of foreign tourists reduced by half in comparison with the same month of the previous year.
Though it has gradually recovered, still stays in the level less than previous year (Fig.10).

Fig.10The number of foreign visitors in 2011 by monthsource : Japan National Tourist Office4）） Global influence
In addition, damages in the affected area could give the worldwide influences through widely
developed supply chains.

A interruption of parts’ supply from the affected area in Tohoku could

cause decrease in automobile production even in the US and EU.
faced shortage of the ingredients for Japanese foods.

Japanese restaurants in China

The East Japan disaster revealed that theaffected area was closely connected with other region in Japan and the world economy.★7

8. Activity for rescue and aid
The activity for rescue and help offered officially and voluntarily for the affected area andvictims have been conducted or arisen in unprecedentedly extended and enduring scales.
Self-defense Forces mobilized totally 107,000 members into the affected area. ★8

Social welfare

council set up “Volunteer Center” in every municipality in the affected area, and much of people
gathered from all over the country to help victims and evacuee.

Total number of VC reached 77

municipalities of six prefectures, among which 66 municipalities belonged to severely damaged
three prefectures, that is Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima (as of November, 2011).

Number of

persons participated in voluntary activities of the VCs reached 809,900 (as of October 23, 2011) inthose three prefectures.★99Helps offered from other countries were also extensive.
deployed 24,500 soldiers to severely damaged places.

The US Armed Forces in Japan

Prime minister Kan announced with deep

gratitude that 130 countries, 30 international organizations and 670 NGO offered various sorts ofaids on March 22, 2011.★10
Almost countless support sites were created on www by the known and unknown user, including
various GIS mapping technologies.

Total donation to Japan Red Cross and the national

government reached 314 billion yen (as of 6, March, 2012).★11
The word of “kizuna 絆 ” meaning “tie” or “bond” was selected one the most popular words in2011.

Various voluntary activities for helps are continuing even a year after the disaster.

9. Concluding remarks
As known commonly, Japan is a country located in one of the most active tectonic zones in theworld, and every geologist and earth scientist in Japan believed that prediction technology forearthquake should be the most excellent in the world.

But the March 11 phenomena resulted in

the most severe disasters Japan had ever experienced, which surpassed any scales of the predictedearthquake and tsunami and any prevention measures in most of affected regions.
In spite of many helps and political measures to recover the affected region, situation there
seems to change little even now.

It should be owing to the delay of political decision andlegislation for recovery project, as well as unexpected intensity of destruction and areal extent of
the affected region.

The final value of damage will

increase because of secondary damages appearing withtime.

If we add the nuclear accident related damages,

total loss originated from the East Japan Earthquake andTsunami might increase to nearly infinite number.
A series of the experiences described above has
definitely given the significant impacts on Japan both
locally and nationally.

Rebuilding the devastatedregion will not easy task to take long time, while thenumber of evacuee who give up returning to each home
place is increasing with elapsed time.

According to theinter-prefectural migration report by the Statistical
Bureau of Japan, emigrated population in 2011 largely
surpassed the same data of 2010 in the Pacific coastprefectures of eastern Honshu (Fig.11).
Japanese people has faced a tuff challenge and in
the author’s view such situation will continue at least
10

Fig.11 Change of emigrated population incomparison with the same period of theprevious year (March to November, 2011)during the first half of 2010’s.

Every geographer in Japan is asked to play a role in the road torecovery, utilizing each specialty.

References★1：http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2727&from=rss_home★2：http://www.seisvol.kishou.go.jp/eq/gaikyo/monthly201103/20110311_tohoku_2.pdf★3：Municipalities in 30km radius from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station are left blank owing todelay of retrieval and confirmation of bodies. The figure was made by the author using the data collected
and arranged by Yuzuru Isoda (Tohoku University) from following sources:
・Iwate Prefecture (http://www.pref.iwate.jp/~hp0802/oshirase/kouhou/saigaijyohou/20110311.html)
・Miyagi Prefecture (http://www.pref.miyagi.jp/)
・Fukushima Prefectural Police (http://www.police.pref.fukushima.jp/shinsai/index.html)★4：http://www.kantei.go.jp/saigai/pdf/20110421110001shiji.pdf，
http://www.meti.go.jp/press/2011/06/20110616007/20110616007-2.pdf，
http://www.gsi.go.jp/common/000060521.pdf★5：Areal designation is supposed to be rearranged to “hard to return area”, “habitation controlled area”,
and “evacuation directive canceled area” depending on yearly accumulative dose after April, 2012.
★6：http://www.jnto.go.jp/jpn/tourism_data/visitor_data.html，
http://www.bugin-eri.co.jp/doc/r111031.pdf（ 東日本大震災後の東北３県観光事情レポート ），http://www.sangiin.go.jp/japanese/annai/chousa/rippou_chousa/backnumber/20110601.html（ 廣瀬亮太
「日本大震災による被害状況及び復旧・復興に向けた課題 国土交通分野を中心に」，立法と調査，317）★7：http://www5.cao.go.jp/j-j/wp/wp-je11/h05_hz00.html（平成 23 年度年次経済財政報告）★8：http://www.sangiin.go.jp/japanese/annai/chousa/rippou_chousa/backnumber/20110601.html（ 笹本浩「東日本大震災に対する自衛隊等の活動」，立法と調査，317）★9：http://www.shakyo.or.jp/saigai/torikumi_01.html（ 全国社会福祉協議会 ）★10：http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/saigai/pdfs/bussisien.pdf（ 諸外国等からの物資支援・寄付金一覧 ）http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/kan/statement/201103/22message.html（ 諸外国からの支援に対する総理メッセージ ）http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/saigai/pdfs/operation_tomodachi.pdf（ 東日本大震災に係る米軍による支援
トモダチ作戦 ）★11：http://www.cao.go.jp/gienkin/pdf/houkoku_20120312.pdf（ 内閣府義援金受付・送金状況 ）11