At 14:46 local time on March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the coast of northeast Japan. This earthquake generated a tsunami that struck Japan as well as various locations around the Pacific Ocean. With the participation of researchers from throughout Japan, joint research groups conducted a tsunami survey along a 2000 km stretch of the Japanese coast. More than 5300 locations have been surveyed to date, generating the largest tsunami survey dataset in the world. On the Sendai Plain, the maximum inundation height was 19.5 m, and the tsunami bore propagated more than 5 km inland. Along the ria coast from about 50 to 200 km north of Sendai, the narrow bays focused the tsunami waves, generating the largest inundation heights and run‐ups. The survey data clearly show a regional dependence of tsunami characteristics.

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Tsunami fragility (fragility curve, or fragility function) is a new measure, we propose, for estimating structural damage and fatalities due to tsunami attack, by integrating satellite remote sensing, field survey, numerical modeling, and historical data analysis with geographic information system (GIS). Tsunami fragility is expressed as the structural damage probability or fatality ratio related to hydrodynamic features of tsunami inundation flow, such as inundation depth, current velocity and hydrodynamic force. It expands the capability of estimating potential tsunami damage in a quantitative manner.