2011/03/20
Editor's note: We will update our earthquake news as frequently as possible on AJW's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/AJW.Asahi. Please check the latest developments in this disaster. From Toshio Jo, managing editor, International Division, The Asahi Shimbun.
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The death toll one week after the Great East Japan Earthquake struck exceeded the figure for the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995.
Officials of the National Police Agency have confirmed 7,197 deaths as of 11 a.m. Saturday, surpassing the 6,434 deaths in the 1995 earthquake that devastated Kobe in western Japan.
The Great East Japan Earthquake is now the deadliest natural disaster in postwar Japan.
The number of casualties is expected to increase because the whereabouts of nearly 19,000 people are still unknown, according to figures compiled by The Asahi Shimbun.
The casualty figure was compiled by the National Police Agency based on reports submitted by prefectural police departments.
Twelve prefectures reported deaths, a large majority from the tsunami that caused major damage to the Sanriku coast area.
Miyagi Prefecture reported the most deaths at 4,289, followed by Iwate Prefecture with 2,223 and Fukushima Prefecture with 619.
The casualty figure does not include those who died at evacuation centers or medical facilities where senior citizens and other victims were transported to.
The number of missing is also fluid. Although police have received reports of about 10,000 people missing in six prefectures, contact has not been made with about 9,000 others in such municipalities as Minami-Sanriku in Miyagi Prefecture.
Large numbers of people have been isolated by the disaster.
As of Wednesday, about 10,000 people in Iwate Prefecture, about 6,050 people in Miyagi Prefecture and 98 people in Fukushima Prefecture were cut off from the rest of society, according to figures compiled by prefectural police departments.
In other areas, the actual situation is unknown due to damage to communications systems.
About 400,000 people are staying at evacuation centers. Municipalities around Japan are preparing public housing for those who want to flee the quake-stricken region.
Construction of temporary housing will begin Saturday in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, with plans calling for the completion of 200 units by the end of March.
Officials of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism have asked housing companies to provide 30,000 temporary housing units in two months.
The prefectural governments of Hyogo and Osaka, which were hit by the Great Hanshin Earthquake, plan to dispatch employees with expertise in construction to the quake-hit areas.
The Great East Japan Earthquake was the fourth largest in the world since 1900.
In terms of strength, the U.S. Geological Survey placed the magnitude-9.0 earthquake just behind the 2004 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
The scale of the Great East Japan Earthquake was about 45 times that of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and about 1,450 times that of the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
Last week's earthquake occurred along the boundary where the Pacific Plate is subducted under the inland plate. A massive fault measuring about 500 kilometers in a north-south direction and about 200 km in an east-west direction moved a maximum of 20 meters along the ocean floor off the coast of an area ranging from Iwate Prefecture to Ibaraki Prefecture.
Japan Meteorological Agency officials believe a series of three earthquakes led to the gigantic scale. Shaking continued for about six minutes and was recorded with an intensity of a maximum 7 on the Japanese scale.
As of noon Friday, 262 aftershocks with at least a magnitude 5.0 have been observed, the largest number ever in Japan.
Temblors with an intensity of at least lower 5 on the Japanese scale were recorded 15 times, including the March 11 earthquake.
The largest aftershock struck off the coast of Ibaraki Prefecture on the afternoon of March 11 with a magnitude of 7.4 and an intensity of lower 6 on the Japanese scale.
Meteorological Agency officials said the number of aftershocks has been decreasing, but warned there was still a 30-percent probability of an aftershock of at least magnitude 7.0 occurring within three days from Friday.
There were also earthquakes of an intensity of at least lower 6, including one with its epicenter in northern Nagano Prefecture on March 12 and one in eastern Shizuoka Prefecture on March 15.
Since the focus of the Great East Japan Earthquake was close to land, the ensuing tsunami caused great damage.
An analysis by the Geospatial Information Authority found that at least 400 square kilometers of land was flooded by the tsunami, an area equivalent to 20 percent of the area of Tokyo. The tsunami reached a maximum 6 km inland.
A tsunami at least 7.3 meters high was observed in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture. A study by researchers of Tohoku University found that the tsunami reached a height of 10 meters in Sendai's Wakabayashi Ward.
An analysis by experts at the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo found that the tsunami hit land as soon as 10 minutes after the earthquake struck.
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