2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami the most popular examples of sonification on the web. Also, following the earthquake, for the first time in Japanese history, the Emperor addressed the nation in a pre-recorded television broadcast. Seismologists anticipated a very large quake would strike in the same place as the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake — in the Sagami Trough, southwest of Tokyo. The Japanese government had tracked plate movements since 1976 in preparation for the so-called Tokai earthquake, predicted to take place in that region. However, occurring as it did north east of Tokyo, the Tōhoku earthquake came as a surprise to seismologists. While the Japan
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami intensities were smaller than the actual ones in some places, especially in Kanto, Koshinetsu, and Northern Tōhoku regions where the populace warning did not trigger. According to the JMA , reasons for the underestimation include a saturated magnitude scale when using maximum amplitude as input, failure to fully take into account the area of the hypocenter, and the initial amplitude of the earthquake being less than that which would be predicted by an empirical relationship. There were also cases where large differences between estimated intensities by the Earthquake Early Warning system and the actual intensities occurred in the aftershocks and