# Great East Japan Earthquake Also known as the Tohoku Earthquake was (at the time) the strongest ever recorded earthquake in Japan. It was a magnitude 9.1 earthquake which happened on March 11, 2011. It caused a 23m high tsunami. It was the cause of the Fukushima nuclear accident. As of June 2020, 15,889 deaths were directly associated to the earthquake, with 2,529 people still unaccounted for.[^1] The earthquake altered plate tectonics. The island of Honshu shifted 2.4m, and the Oshika peninsula in the Miyagi Prefecture sank by 1.2m. [^1]: Voyapon. [Earthquakes in Japan – Why Are They Common & What to Do When One Happens](https://voyapon.com/earthquakes-japan/).