The Tohoku earthquake struck Japan in 2011

The Tohoku earthquake struck Japan in 2011, going down as one of the greatest earthquakes in history. The earthquake had a magnitude of nine and was known as the Great East Japan Earthquake. The epicenter was located 48 miles off the Tohoku region on the Sanriku Coast, sending a large tsunami towards this region. The earthquake was so massive that it moved the Han Shu Island 14 feet and shifted the earth's axis more than six inches. The Tohoku earthquake killed 16,000 people and injured 6,000. The Japanese government had invested in physical mitigation systems for this very scenario. Tsunami break waters were built in the Sanriku coast to break the incoming waves that would be generated from deep sea earthquakes. They were designed based off two of the largest earthquakes in history at the time, the 1896 Meiji Sanriku and the 1960 Chilean. The Tohoku earthquake sent waves higher than anyone could have imagined or designed for. The break waters did help with preventing a larger tragedy but were not high enough to combat the massive waves (Cuadra, 2022). A second mitigation system built that failed during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake were sea walls. Over 190 kilometers of the 300-kilometer sea wall was either damaged or broken when the tsunami was over. The tsunami waves generated had reached three to four meters over the sea walls, destroying any in its path. The sea walls were designed to protect people from high tides and typhoons except. There was a section 2.4 kilometers long that was specifically made for tsunami's because that town was prone to getting them in the past. The They were 10 meters tall, and yet the tsunami waves from the earthquake still managed to demolish the eastern portion of this sea wall and even raise above the sea wall at some sections (Suppasri et al., 2012).