Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Fifth Anniversary of the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

March 8, 2016

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Google has been using Street View and aerial imagery to record both the devastation caused and the subsequent rebuilding process. They have recently released a new batch of Street View imagery for some of the worst affected areas, allowing you to see the changes over the last five years. Read more about it on the LatLong blog. You can also explore the imagery at the “Great East Japan Earthquake Digital Archive Project”.

Google has also been gathering aerial imagery of Japan, including the affected areas. They have recently released some imagery dated February 2016. It is not yet in ‘historical imagery’ but can be found in the default layer. It is unusual for aerial imagery in that it shows quite a lot of snow cover. The LatLong blog shows an animation of one location showing the situation before the Tsunami, the devastation caused and the recovery and rebuilding process to date. Below we show similar images for another location. You could do the same for almost any location along the North East coast of Japan.

August 2010, before the Tsunami.

March 2011, showing the devastation after the Tsunami.

February 2016, showing rebuilding taking place. However, they are avoiding building houses within the danger zone.

We have marked out the areas covered by the new 2016 aerial imagery, which you can view in Google Earth with this KML file.

Google did some similar imagery comparisons one year after the disaster, which we covered here.

The Great East Japan Earthquake Big Data Workshop

March 14, 2013

When Japan was struck by the massive earthquake and tsunami two years ago, many people turned to Google Earth to learn more about the situation. As time has gone by, Google Earth has also been a great way to display archived information about the disaster, with the latest example in the form of “The East Japan Earthquake Archive“.

They have compiled a vast amount of information into this project, including data from Project Hayano. The site includes image overlays, information bubbles, embedded videos, iPhone apps, and much more.
Here is a brief video showing more about the features available on their site:

You can explore it using this Google Earth-plugin powered map

and find more on the main page of their site.

Google Earth A to Z: Japan and Jane Goodall

July 18, 2012

Japan
In March, 2011, Japan was hit by a major earthquake, which caused the devastating tsunami that we’ve all heard about. As with similar events in the past, the geo community quickly responded with helpful maps and other resources that were of great value to those affected.
By later the same morning after the earthquake hit, there were already a variety of great resources which we summarized here.

The same types of maps and resources are built for most major natural disasters around the world, and it’s amazing that Google Earth can be used in such a great way.
Jane Goodall
Back in early 2006, the Jane Goodall Institute became the first blog to geotag their blog entries, and they made some nice technical improvements to the blog later that year. The next year Google launched their Google Earth Outreach initiative, which added layers to Google Earth to show off some of the great work that organizations such as the Jane Goodall Institute do.

Today you can find layers such as this one (and many others) under the [Global Awareness] Layer in Google Earth.

Japanese disaster imagery, one year later

March 12, 2012

It’s been a year since the huge earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, and Google has released fresh imagery to show the recovery made by Japan over the past 12 months.
The new imagery was captured during the past month, and covers almost the entire northeastern coastline of Japan from Hachinohe down to Hitachi City. As you can see from some of the snapshots below, the improvements made to the country in the past year are quite remarkable.
Here is a bridge from Minami Sanriku Town, Miyagi:

Another great example that Google featured was from Shiogama Port, Miyagi:

To head over there to see the imagery for yourself, simply fly to Japan in Google Earth or use this KML file

Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

to be automatically flown to that part of the country. It’s heartwarming to see how well the rebuilding effort has been going, and hopefully they’ll be able to continue to put the pieces back into place.
(via Google Lat Long Blog)

Historical Street View imagery for Japan

December 13, 2011

One of the neatest features added to Google Earth in the past few years is the Historical Imagery added in Google Earth 5. Being able to go back in time and few older imagery is such a neat thing to do.
Now that Google is starting to roll out fresh Street View imagery around the world, we’re getting a glimpse of a somewhat similar feature in there. There’s two parts to this:
First, Google has created a special “Build the Memory” site for imagery in Japan, allowing you to see before and after shots of towns affected by the earthquake and tsunami.

It’s not a full-fledged “historical” view, since it’s only for Japan, but it’s a very neat way to see that imagery.
The also added the oft-requested feature of putting dates on the Street View imagery. It’s been a fun game to try to determine when imagery was captured, but now they tell you the month and year right on the imagery while you’re viewing it!

The dates don’t appear when you’re using Street View inside of Google Earth, but I would expect that’ll be coming in a future update.
You can read more about these updates on the Google Lat Long Blog.