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Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Update Monday, March 14, 2011 Note: New content has been inserted in red, italicized, bold font. Overview A powerful 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit Japan on Friday (March 11) (the earthquake has since been upgraded to 9.0 magnitude by Japan’s Meteorological Agency) at 1446 local time (0546 GMT), unleashing massive tsunami waves that crashed into Japan’s eastern coast of Honshu, the largest and main island of Japan, resulting in widespread damage and destruction. According to the Government of Japan (GoJ) as of Monday (March 14), at 1 least 1,647 people are confirmed dead, 1,990 people are injured and some 10,000 people are reported to be missing, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported. The UN says that it is expected that the numbers are likely to increase as emergency teams begin to reach some affected areas . The earthquake sparked widespread tsunami warnings across the Pacific that stretched from Japan to North and South America. According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), the shallow quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 km) (20 km deep according to Japan’s Meteorological Agency), around 80 miles (125 km) off the eastern coast of Japan, and 240 miles (380 km) northeast of Tokyo. It was reportedly the largest recorded quake in Japan’s history and the fifth largest in the world since 1900. The quake was also felt in Japan’s capital city, Tokyo, located hundreds of miles from the epicenter and was also felt as far away as the Chinese capital Beijing, some 1,500 miles away.
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