Earthquake Facts

Tsunamis retain their strength, which means they can fly with minimal energy loss across entire oceans. The Transoceanic Tsunami or Teletsunami is a tsunami that extends thousands of miles through the ocean. A local tsunami is a tsunami which only reaches the coast near the point of its origin.

A wave of bodies washed ashore on the peninsula in Miyagi Prefecture after the 2011 Japan tsunami.

After an earthquake and tsunami destroyed the main cooling systems and generators at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Japan in 2011, over 180,000 people were evacuated.

The earthquake that caused the Japanese tsunami in 2011 was the fifth largest earthquake in the world since 1900. It has been 1,200 years since the plate boundary of Japan was hit by an earthquake of this magnitude.

The World Bank estimates that it will cost $232 billion to rebuild Japan's tsunami-affected areas, and it will take at least five years.

It is predicted that the 2011 Japan tsunami will become the world's most costly catastrophe in history.

As of 25 March 2011, more than 21,911 people were killed and missing in the Japanese tsunami (more than 10,000 confirmed dead; 17,440 missing) and 2,755 injured.

Before the 2011 tsunami, which consisted of more than 1,500 seismometers and more than 500 water level gauges, Japan had the most sophisticated tsunami warning system in the world due to its long history of destructive tsunamis. The tsunami warning system in Japan costs $20 million a year to work.

Of the three major oceans, there is only an integrated multinational tsunami warning system in the Pacific Ocean. In the Indian Ocean in 2004, there was no tsunami warning system, although experts had previously suggested that one be built.

Reports indicate that those who use their vehicles to avoid tsunamis frequently get trapped or face other barriers in traffic jams and are thus more likely to be swept away. Reports suggest that the safest way to escape is on foot, climbing as quickly as possible up any steep slopes nearby.