11 March - Japan's most powerful earthquake since records began has struck the north-east coast, triggering a massive tsunami.
Cars, ships and buildings were swept away by a wall of water after
the 8.9-magnitude tremor, which struck about 400km (250 miles)
north-east of Tokyo. A state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant, where pressure has exceeded normal levels. Officials say 350 people are dead and about 500 missing, but it is feared the final death toll will be much higher. In one ward alone in Sendai, a port city in Miyagi prefecture, 200 to 300 bodies were found. The quake was the fifth-largest in the world since 1900 and
nearly 8,000 times stronger than the one which devastated Christchurch,
New Zealand, last month, said scientists. Thousands of people living near the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been ordered to evacuate.
Japanese nuclear officials said pressure
inside a boiling water reactor at the plant was running much higher than
normal after the cooling system failed. Officials said they might need to deliberately release some
radioactive steam to relieve pressure, but that there would be no health
risk. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had earlier said the US Air Force had flown emergency coolant to the site. But US officials later said no coolant had been handed over because the Japanese had decided to handle the situation themselves. The UN's nuclear agency said four nuclear power plants had shut down safely. Measured at 8.9 by the US Geological Survey, it struck at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) at a depth of about 24km. The tsunami rolled across the Pacific at 800km/h (500mph) -
as fast as a jetliner - before hitting Hawaii and the US West Coast, but
there were no reports of major damage from those regions.
Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate coastal areas in the states of California, Oregon and Washington. The biggest waves of more than 6-7ft (about 2m) were recorded
near California's Crescent City, said the Pacific Tsunami Warning
Centre. A tsunami warning extended across the Pacific to North and
South America, where many other coastal regions were evacuated, but the
alert was later lifted in most parts, including the Philippines,
Australia and China. Strong waves hit Japan's Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, damaging dozens of coastal communities. A 10m wave struck Sendai, deluging farmland and sweeping cars
across the airport's runway. Fires broke out in the centre of the city.
[adapted from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598]
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