Japan Earthquake and Tsunami 2011

Pacific Ocean offshore earthquake was a 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on Friday 11 March 2011 and and followed by another three on the same day in excess of 6.0 magnitude.

The earthquake triggered tsunami warnings and evacuations along Japan's Pacific coast and in at least 20 countries, including the entire Pacific coast of North America and South America. The earthquake created extremely destructive tsunami waves of up to 10 meters (33 ft) that struck Japan minutes after the quake, with smaller waves after several hours in many other countries. In Japan, the waves are reported to have travelled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland.

Around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.4 million without water. Many electrical generators were taken down and three reactors believed to have partially melted down have experienced a chemical explosion extensively damaging their buildings, and the integrity of the inner core-containment vessel of one compromised and some dangerously radioactive release from the plant has occurred.

Source: Wikipedia