what type of earthquake caused the tsunami in japan
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku (東北地方太平洋沖地震, Tōhoku-chihō Taiheiyō Oki Jishin) was a magnitude 9.0–9.1 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on Friday 11 March 2011,[4][9][10] with the epicentre approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and the hypocenter at an underwater depth of approximately 29 km (18 mi).[4][11] The earthquake is often referred to in Japan as the Great East Japan Earthquake (東日本大震災, Higashi nihon daishinsai)[12][13][fn 1] and is also known as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake,[28] and the 3.11 earthquake. 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.[10][29][30] The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture,[31][32] and which, in the Sendai area, traveled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland.[33] The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 2.4 m (8 ft) east, shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm (4 in) and 25 cm (10 in),[34][35][36] increased earth's rotational speed by 1.8 µs per day,[37] and generated infrasound waves detected in perturbations of the low-orbiting GOCE satellite.[38] Initially, the earthquake caused sinking of part of Honshu's Pacific coast by up to roughly a metre, but after about three years, the coast rose back and kept on rising to exceed the original height of the coast.[39][40][41][42]
Great Hanshin earthquake Up to 6,434 people lost their lives; about 4,600 of them were from Kobe.[5] Among major cities, Kobe, with its population of 1.5 million, was the closest to the epicenter and hit by the strongest tremors. This was Japan's worst earthquake in the 20th century after the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, which claimed more than 105,000 lives.