A wrecked fishing boat among the debris in Ofunato, Japan illustrates the severity of the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

On Friday, March 11, 2011, Japan experienced a catastrophic earthquake at 2:46:23 pm local time (i.e. 12:46:23 am EST). The 9.0 Richter magnitude earthquake, and the accompanying tsunami that resulted, provoked the largest crisis that Japan had encountered since the end of World War II. This earthquake epicenter was off the eastern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. The Honshu earthquake was the world’s fourth largest earthquake since 1900 and the largest in Japan since modern recordings began 130 years ago. Japan is no stranger to earthquakes since it is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the location of 90% of all of the world’s earthquakes.