Northern Japan destroyed by superquake

A massive 8.9/9.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean nearby Northeastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11 (JST) causing damage with blackouts, fire and tsunami. On this page we are providing the information regarding the disaster and damage with realtime updates.

The large earthquake triggered a tsunami warning for countries all around the Pacific ocean. This earthquake was the biggest to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s.  It ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month.

The scenes of the town of Ofunato showed homes and warehouses in ruins. Sludge and high water spread over acres of land, with people seeking refuge on roofs of partially submerged buildings.

The quake shook dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coast and tall buildings swayed in Tokyo, hundreds of miles from the epicenter.

Tsunami swept away ships, yachts, houses, trucks and cars inland all over Northern Japan. The entire Pacific had been put on alert — including coastal areas of South America, Canada and Alaska — but waves were not as bad as expected.

The quake was followed for hours by aftershocks. The U.S. Geological Survey said 124 were detected off Japan's main island of Honshu, 111 of them of magnitude 5.0 or greater. Fire burned well past dark in a large section of Kesennuma, a city of 70,000 people in Miyagi.

Waves of muddy waters flowed over farms near Sendai, carrying buildings, some of them ablaze. Drivers attempted to flee. The tarmac at Sendai's airport was inundated with thick, muddy debris that included cars, trucks, buses and even light planes.

Officials declared the first-ever state of emergency at a Japanese nuclear power plant and ordered evacuations after the earthquake knocked out power to a cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi facility near the city of Onahama, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. They said radiation levels inside the facility had surged to 1,000 times more than normal.

Japan nuclear plant operator reported radiation had exceeded the legal limit. Emergency measures put in place after the first nuclear reactor explosion last Saturday March 12, 2010. Meltdown occurs when plants system collapses and prevents proper cooling of the reactor. 180k people within the 20 kilometer radius were evacuated.