Terrifying video showing the power of 2011 Japan tsunami earthquake as it violently shook an airport then flooded the runway in minutes emerges nine years after the disaster
- The footage was taken by a passenger at Sendai Airport on March 11, 2011
- It shows a 9.1-magnitude earthquake and tsunami which killed up to 18,000
- The rising water sweeps away trucks and vehicles as it overwhelms the runway
This astonishing new footage of the 2011 Japanese tsunami shows an airport shaking in the 9.1-magnitude earthquake before waves come crashing onto the tarmac and engulf the runway.
The footage, taken by a passenger at Sendai Airport on March 11, 2011, is taken in the midst of a disaster which left more than 18,000 people dead or missing and caused the world’s worst nuclear meltdown since Chernobyl.
Published by TV channel ANN, the video shows mothers desperately trying to shield their children inside the airport as tables and chairs are flung around.
Attention then turns to the tsunami outside where the rising water submerges trucks and vehicles as it totally overwhelms the runway.
Overrun: The footage shows the tsunami on a destructive path outside the airport, where the rising water submerges trucks and vehicles as it totally overwhelms the runway
The footage starts in an airport cafe, where the floor and walls are seen shaking violently in the midst of the earthquake.
Some of the furniture has toppled over with debris strewn over the floor, while lamps are swinging from left to right from the walls and ceiling.
At least two people are shielding their children from the earthquake as they cower on the floor and behind a sofa.
Staff at the eatery begin trying to keep order once the shaking stops, rearranging tables and chairs while one massages his back.
The camera angle then changes to show the looming devastation outside the airport terminal, with waves already beginning to pour onto the runway.
Within barely a minute, the water has completely overrun the tarmac and engulfed the trucks and other vehicles that were parked there.
A walkway between the terminal and the planes which would normally be parked there remained standing but was swamped by the water.
Within moments, piles of dirty debris were floating in the high waters as the tsunami brought massive destruction to Japan.
Shaking: The footage shows the inside of an airport cafe, where the floor and walls are seen shaking violently in the midst of the earthquake in March 2011
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is seen in a satellite image in the aftermath of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986
Buildings destroyed by a tsunami are pictured in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture, in northern Japan after the earthquake and tsunami
According to the National Police Agency, some 18,430 people died or were missing as a result of the earthquake and tsunami.
In addition, more than 3,700 people – most of them from Fukushima – died from illness or suicide linked to the aftermath of the tragedy, according to government data, while more than 50,000 still remain displaced.
The killer tsunami also swamped the emergency power supply at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
This sent its reactors into meltdown as cooling systems failed, sparking the worst global nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
Although no-one is officially recorded as having died as a result of radiation from the accident, dozens of reactors across Japan were switched off in the aftermath.
The government has lifted evacuation orders for much of the region affected by the meltdown, except for some no-go zones with high radiation levels.
Authorities are encouraging evacuees to return, but the population in the Fukushima prefecture has more than halved from some two million in the pre-disaster period.
A road is ravaged by the 9.1-magnitude earthquake which left as many as 18,430 people dead or missing in March 2011
A bus takes people past a flattened suburb in Miyagi Prefecture two weeks after the disaster
The damaged third and fourth reactors of the TEPCO Fukushima No.1 power plant