Japan quake strongest in area in 12 centuries
Workers inspect a caved-in section of a road in Satte, Saitama Prefecture, after one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in Japan slammed its eastern coast on Friday. (AP)
Published: Mar 12, 2011 00:41 Updated: Mar 15, 2011 13:14
WASHINGTON: The massive earthquake that struck off the coast of Japan Friday was the strongest quake in the area in nearly 1,200 years. It was also calculated to have caused the day to get a tiny bit shorter.
David Applegate, a senior science adviser for earthquake and geologic hazards for the US Geological Survey, said the 8.9-magnitude quake ruptured a patch of the earth’s crust 150 miles long and 50 miles across.
He said the earthquake, which also spawned a massive tsunami that hit Japan before racing across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States, likely caused tens of billions of dollars in structural damage in Japan.
Laura K. Furgione, deputy director for the National Weather Service, said the tsunami first hit Hawaii early Friday morning. An 8.1-foot wave destroyed piers and docks in Crescent City, California, later Friday.
NASA geophysicist Richard Gross said the giant earthquake also caused the day to get a wee bit shorter.
Gross calculated that Earth’s rotation sped up by 1.6 microseconds. That is because of the shift in Earth’s mass caused by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.
That change in rotation speed is slightly more than the one caused by last year’s larger Chile earthquake. But 2004’s bigger Sumatra earthquake caused a 6.8-microsecond shortening of the day.
The Japan quake is the world's fifth strongest since 1900.
