The devastating 9.0-magnitude offshore earthquake that struck Japan today killed hundreds of people and set off a tsunami that killed hundreds more while swamping harbors and flooding the coastal city of Sendai.
The earthquake was the most powerful to hit Japan since record-keeping began in the late 1800s--nearly 8,000 times stronger than the earthquake that struck Christchurch New Zealand last month--and ranked as the fourth-largest in the world since 1900.
The earthquake shook Japan for more than two minutes. Since then, the island nation has experienced more than 150 aftershocks of magnitude 5.0 or greater, and 27 of magnitude 6.0 or greater, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Tsunami warnings went up in 53 nations around the Pacific Rim, and the waves caused damage as far away as California and parts of South America.
Typically, the world sees only one earthquake per year that measures 8.0 or greater on the Richter scale, but may experience more than 1,000 earthquakes annually that are strong enough to cause some level of damage.
Lately, geologists have started to predict that climate change will lead to more frequent and severe earthquakes and tsunamis as melting glaciers reduce the pressure on the Earth's surface.
Updated March 14, after scientists upgraded the earthquake from magnitude 8.9 to 9.0, making it the fourth-largest in the world, rather than the fifth-largest, as was reported earlier.
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