Where was it?
The epicentre is located off the east coast of Japan, about 70 kilometres from the Oshika Peninsula with the hypocentre 32km underwater. It was between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates in the Japan trench. The coordinates of the epicentre are 38.322°N 142.369°E. However, not all of the earthquake came just from the epicentre, there were also many aftershocks from different locations. The map below shows where these aftershocks were located. As the earthquake happened in the sea, it created a tsunami (which you can find out more about here). Also, because the epicentre was located so close to Japan, the tsunami waves that hit the country were still mostly very big. Another result of it being so close is that a lot of the country was affected, as shown in the bottom right map. |
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