Japan quake 'a truly massive event'

The tsunami triggered by the earthquake which rocked Japan’s eastern coast today will cause “horrific” damage, an expert has predicted.

Dr Roger Musson, of the British Geological Survey (BGS), said the first test of how strong the tsunami is going to be on the other side of the Pacific will be when it hits Hawaii.

He said: “I imagine that most of the damage is going to be done by the tsunami.

“The pictures which we have been receiving from Japan are really horrific and the tsunami has just been sweeping across the coastal lowlands carrying all in its path.

“The more damage it does, the more debris it sweeps in front of it, and that just increases the damaging power of the wave. It really is a frightening sight.”

Dr Musson, head of seismic hazard at the BGS, explained how the devastating earthquake occurred.

He said: “The cause of this earthquake is that the Pacific Plate, which is one of the largest of the tectonic plates that makes up the crust of the Earth, is plunging deep underneath Japan.

“It’s being pushed down and it can’t slide down smoothly so it sticks. It sticks for tens of years and then eventually it breaks and moves very suddenly down and as it does so it buckles and gives the seabed a sudden kick over areas of hundreds of square kilometres and that displaces an enormous volume of water.

“That water just races away in the form of this enormous wave in all directions.”

He described the quake, measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale, as a “truly massive event”.

He said: “It’s the sixth-largest earthquake which has ever been recorded and it’s larger than any earthquake that has ever stuck Japan before.

“There is a huge contrast between this earthquake and the recent Christchurch earthquake.

“This is totally different – it is capable of affecting a huge area and it’s a rare event. It’s something you would normally expect only once in a decade.

“Instead of having a concentrated destruction in one city as you had in Christchurch, here, there is going to be damage over a very wide area in the north-east of Japan.”