The Japanese National Police Agency has officially confirmed 7,700 deaths, 2,612 injured, and 11,651 people missing across seventeen prefectures, as well as over 100,000 buildings damaged or destroyed.The earthquake and tsunami caused extensive and severe structural damage in Japan, including heavy damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and a dam collapse. Around 4.4 million households in northeastern Japan were left without electricity and 1.5 million without water. Many electrical generators were taken down, and at least three nuclear reactors suffered explosions due to hydrogen gas that had built up within their outer containment buildings. On 18 March, International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Yukiya Amano described the crisis as "extremely serious." Residents within a 20 km (12 mi) radius of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and a 10 km (6 mi) radius of the Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant were evacuated.
Estimates of the Tōhoku earthquake's magnitude make it the most powerful known earthquake to hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world overall since modern record-keeping began in 1900.Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said that "in the 65 years after the end of World War II, this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan."The earthquake moved Honshu 2.4 m (7.9 ft) east and shifted the Earth on its axis by almost 10 cm (3.9 in). Early estimates placed insured losses from the earthquake alone at US$14.5 to $34.6 billion. The Bank of Japan offered ¥15 trillion (US$183 billion) to the banking system on 14 March 2011 in an effort to normalize market conditions. (Source = Wikipedia)
