Abstract
The January 1, 2024 Noto Peninsula Mw 7.5 tsunamigenic earthquake, with at least 241 deaths, was the most destructive event in Japan following the March 2011 Mw 9.0 catastrophic event. We conducted field surveys in the affected area 24 days after the event to document tsunami heights, runups, coseismic coastal uplift and damage to coastal structures. Here, we present the results of the surveys and analyze tsunami height distribution and associated damage. In our survey of 29 locations, tsunami runups and heights varied in the ranges of 4.4–6.2 m, and 1.0–4.4 m, respectively. Notably, Joetsu, the farthest location from the epicenter in our field survey, recorded the highest runup of 6.2 m, which is attributed to the directivity effect of tsunami waves. The maximum surveyed runup of 6.2 m closely aligns with the reported maximum fault slip of 4–6 m for this earthquake, confirming a long-established rule of thumb. Coastal crustal uplifts of up to 1.6 m have rendered many ports unsuitable for use. We identified three failure mechanisms affecting coastal structures: overturning caused by tsunami backwash, damage resulting from tsunami inundation currents and wave pressure, and impacts from floating objects and debris.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 118140 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Ocean Engineering |
| Volume | 307 |
| Early online date | 15 May 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Sept 2024 |
Data Availability Statement
Data will be made available on request.Funding
From a seismological point of view, the Sea of Japan is considered a seismically active region and numerous active tsunamigenic faults have been identified (e.g., Okamura 2007 ). Some of the previous large and deadly tsunamigenic earthquakes in the Sea of Japan are ( Figure 1 ): the June 1964 off Niigata event (M w 7.5) leaving 28 deaths ( Kawasumi 1968 ; Abe 1975 ; Satake and Abe 1983 ), the May 1983 Akita-Oki event (M w 7.9) ( Satake 1985 ), and the July 1993 Hokkaido Nansei-Oki event (M w 7.8) with more than 200 fatalities ( Tanioka et al. 1995 ). The government committee jointly supported by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and the Cabinet Office of Japan compiled previous studies and developed 60 rupture scenarios from submarine and coastal active faults which are capable of producing earthquakes with magnitudes in the range of M 6.8 \u2013 M 7.9 ( Figure 2 a, MLIT 2014; Mulia et al. 2020 ; Murotani et al. 2022 ). The coastal areas along the Sea of Japan host nine Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) ( Figure 1 ) which are naturally at risk of large earthquakes and tsunamis from this seismogenic and tsunamigenic zone. The Shika NPP, located approximately 60 km from the epicenter of the January 2024 earthquake ( Figure 1 ), reported no severe damage following this event. This research is funded by open funding of State Key Lab of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, China, grant number SKHL2101. We also received funding from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation (http://www.gbsf.org.uk/), United Kingdom, under grant number No. 6217 (year 2023).We are sincerely grateful to the numerous local people who kindly welcomed and assisted us during the surveys despite the difficult situations following the earthquake and tsunami. Professor Kenji Satake (University of Tokyo, Japan) guided us to valuable information regarding the mechanism of the earthquake and the tsunami. A number of figures were drafted using the GMT software (Wessel and Smith, 1998). We acknowledge the University of Bath Institutional Open Access Fund. We are grateful to the guest editor and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive review comments. This research is funded by open funding of State Key Lab of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, grant number SKHL2101. We also received funding from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation ( http://www.gbsf.org.uk/ ) under grant number No. 6217 (year 2023).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism | |
| University of Tokyo | |
| Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology | |
| Sichuan University | SKHL2101 |
| Sichuan University | |
| Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation | 6217 |
| Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation | |
| Cabinet Office of Japan | 2022 |
Keywords
- Coseismic uplift
- Earthquake
- Field survey
- Noto
- Sea of Japan
- Tsunami
- Wave runup
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Environmental Engineering
- Ocean Engineering