A massive underwater fault that caused a historic disaster across the entire Pacific Rim is once again building towards destruction.
Scientists at Tohoku University found that the Japan Trench is stuck just like it was before unleashing the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake on March 11, 2011, which sent a tsunami all the way to Hawaii and the US West Coast.
That earthquake ruptured a large section of the Japan Trench and devastated Japan’s northeast coast with a tsunami that led to approximately 20,000 deaths and disappearances in the country.
It also triggered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster when the tsunami flooded the power plant, leading to the facility’s three reactors melting down and releasing radioactive material into the air and ocean.
In the US, nearly 5,000 miles away, the tsunami spread $100 million in damage across dozens of ports and harbors, including Crescent City, California, where one person was killed.
Now, the new study found that the same underwater fault is locking in place and accumulating seismic stress again, which will one day snap free and unleash another major disaster.
Known as the ‘megathrust,’ the trench is a giant fault deep under the ocean where the Pacific Plate is slowly sliding beneath Japan – which sits on the Okhotsk Plate.
When the fault is locked, the two tectonic plates get stuck together by friction instead of sliding smoothly, eventually snapping and releasing that energy in the form of a catastrophic earthquake and possible tsunami.
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