page_title: 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
section_title: Transport
hierarchical_section_title: 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami / Damage and effects / Transport
caption_attribution_description: English: Rokko Bridge in Namegata City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, fallen by the 2011 Eastern Japan Great Earthquake 日本語: 2011 年 3 月 11 日の東北地方太平洋沖地震で落ちた鹿行大橋中央部。2基のパイルベント橋脚と3径間の橋桁が北浦に沈んだ。行方市側の残った橋脚も傾いている。落橋防止システムも見当たらない
context_page_description: The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku was a magnitude 9.0–9.1 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately 70 kilometers east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and the hypocenter at an underwater depth of approximately 29 km.
  The earthquake is often referred to in Japan as the Great East Japan Earthquake and is also known as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, the Great Sendai Earthquake, the Great Tōhoku Earthquake, and the great earthquake of March 11.
  It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900.
  The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that may have reached heights of up to 40.5 meters in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture, and which, in the Sendai area, traveled at 700 km/h and up to 10 km inland. Residents of Sendai had only eight to ten minutes of warning, and more than a hundred evacuation sites were washed away.
context_section_description: Japan's transport network suffered severe disruptions. Many sections of Tōhoku Expressway serving northern Japan were damaged. The expressway did not reopen to general public use until 24 March 2011. All railway services were suspended in Tokyo, with an estimated 20,000 people stranded at major stations across the city. In the hours after the earthquake, some train services were resumed. Most Tokyo area train lines resumed full service by the next day—12 March. Twenty thousand stranded visitors spent the night of 11–12 March inside Tokyo Disneyland.
  A tsunami flooded Sendai Airport at 15:55 JST, about 1 hour after the initial quake, causing severe damage. Narita and Haneda Airport both briefly suspended operations after the quake, but suffered little damage and reopened within 24 hours. Eleven airliners bound for Narita were diverted to nearby Yokota Air Base.
  Various train services around Japan were also canceled, with JR East suspending all services for the rest of the day. Four trains on coastal lines were reported as being out of contact with operators; one, a four-car train on the Senseki Line, was found to have derailed, and its occupants were rescued shortly after 8 am the next morning. Minami-Kesennuma Station on the Kesennuma Line was obliterated save for its platform; 62 of 70 (31 of 35) JR East train lines suffered damage to some degree; in the worst-hit areas, 23 stations on 7 lines were washed away, with damage or loss of track in 680 locations and the 30-km radius around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant unable to be assessed.
  There were no derailments of Shinkansen bullet train services in and out of Tokyo, but their services were also suspended. The Tōkaidō Shinkansen resumed limited service late in the day and was back to its normal schedule by the next day, while the Jōetsu and Nagano Shinkansen resumed services late on 12 March. Services on Yamagata Shinkansen resumed with limited numbers of trains on 31 March.
  Derailments were minimized because of an early warning system that detected the earthquake before it struck. The system automatically stopped all high-speed trains, which minimized the damage.
  The Tōhoku Shinkansen line was worst hit, with JR East estimating that 1,100 sections of the line, varying from collapsed station roofs to bent power pylons, will need repairs. Services on the Tōhoku Shinkansen partially resumed only in Kantō area on 15 March, with one round-trip service per hour between Tokyo and Nasu-Shiobara, and Tōhoku area service partially resumed on 22 March between Morioka and Shin-Aomori. Services on Akita Shinkansen resumed with limited numbers of trains on 18 March. Service between Tokyo and Shin-Aomori was restored by May, but at lower speeds due to ongoing restoration work; the pre-earthquake timetable was not reinstated until late September.
  The rolling blackouts brought on by the crises at the nuclear power plants in Fukushima had a profound effect on the rail networks around Tokyo starting on 14 March. Major railways began running trains at 10–20 minute intervals, rather than the usual 3–5 minute intervals, operating some lines only at rush hour and completely shutting down others; notably, the Tōkaidō Main Line, Yokosuka Line, Sōbu Main Line and Chūō-Sōbu Line were all stopped for the day. This led to near-paralysis within the capital, with long lines at train stations and many people unable to come to work or get home. Railway operators gradually increased capacity over the next few days, until running at approximately 80% capacity by 17 March and relieving the worst of the passenger congestion.
caption: A highway bridge damaged and severed
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