Tokyo, March 11: The huge tsunami waves triggered by the 8.9 earthquake in Japan are expected to touch the shores of South America 21 hours after the first occurence.
Tsunami waves will be touching Hawaii islands in the Pacific at around 6 pm IST. They are expected to touch New Zealand at around 10.50 PM IST.
29 strong aftershocks have taken place in Japan since the strong 8.9 temblor.
Reportedly, the epicenter was located off the east coast of Tohoku, Japan on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 05:46 UTC (02:46 p.m. local time and 11.16 PM India Time) at a depth of 24.4 kilometres (15.2 mi).
Originally a 7.9 on the moment magnitude scale, it was upgraded to an 8.8, then finally to 8.9 by the United States Geological Survey making it the largest earthquake to hit Japan in recorded history and the 7th largest in the world since records began.
The earthquake occurred 130 kilometres (81 mi) east of Sendai, Honshu, Japan.
Its epicenter was 373 kilometres (232 mi) from Tokyo, according to the United States Geological Survey.
A 7.1 magnitude aftershock was reported 40 minutes following the initial quake.
At least twenty aftershocks of magnitude 5.5 or greater have occurred since the initial quake, one as strong as 7.1.
The USGS estimated that approximately 2.5 million people would have felt severe shaking, which could result in heavy damage. Another 11 million could have felt strong to very strong shaking.
The mega-city of Tokyo sits on the intersection of three continental plates -- the Eurasian, Pacific and Philippine Sea plates -- which are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure. The government's Earthquake Research Committee has warned of a 70 percent chance that a great, magnitude-eight quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo's vast urban sprawl.
The earthquake triggered a tsunami warning for Japan's Pacific coast and more than 20 countries, including New Zealand, Australia, Russia, Guam, Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Hawaii, Northern Marianas (USA), Taiwan and pacific coastal countries in South and Central America including Mexico. Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Peru.
The tsunami warning issued by Japan was the most serious on its warning scale, implying that the wave was expected to be 10 meters high. A 0.5 meter high wave hit Japan's northern coast.
5TH LARGEST QUAKE RECORDED SINCE 1900
Since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Service, larger than the 7.9-magnitude Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo in 1923 or the 6.8 magnitude quake that hit Kobe in 1995.
• The last time a "Big One" hit Tokyo was in 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. In 1855, the Ansei Edo quake also devastated the city.
•In 1995 Kobe earthquake killed more then 6,400 people.
•More than 220,000 people were killed when a 9.1-magnitude quake hit off Indonesia in 2004, unleashing a massive tsunami that devastated coastlines in countries around the Indian Ocean as far away as Africa.
•Small quakes are felt every day somewhere in Japan and people take part in regular drills at schools and workplaces to prepare for a calamity.
•Nuclear power plants and bullet trains are designed to automatically shut down when the earth rumbles and many buildings have been quake-proofed with steel and ferro-concrete at great cost in recent decades.
