Advance prediction of the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake: A missed opportunity for disaster preparedness C. Davis a,n , V. Keilis-Borok b,c , V. Kossobokov c,d , A. Soloviev c a Geotechnical Engineering Group, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 111 North Hope Street, Room 1368, Los Angeles, CA 90012, USA b Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567, USA c Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 84/32 Profsouznaya, Moscow 117997, Russia d Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, 1 Rue Jussieu, 75238 Paris Cedex 05, France article info Article history: Received 5 February 2012 Received in revised form 28 February 2012 Accepted 8 March 2012 Available online 6 April 2012 Keywords: Earthquake prediction Forecast Emergency management Disaster preparedness Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami abstract There was a missed opportunity for implementing important disaster preparedness measures following an earthquake prediction that was announced as an alarm in mid- 2001. This intermediate-term middle-range prediction was the initiation of a chain of alarms that successfully detected the time, region, and magnitude range for the magnitude 9.0 March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. The prediction chains were made using an algorithm called M8 and is the latest of many predictions tested worldwide for more than 25 years, the results of which show at least a 70% success rate. The earthquake detection could have been utilized to implement measures and improve earthquake preparedness in advance; unfortunately this was not done, in part due to the predictions’ limited distribution and the lack of applying existing methods for using intermediate-term predictions to make decisions for taking action. The resulting earthquake and induced tsunami caused tremendous devastation to north-east Japan. Methods that were known in advance of the predication and further advanced during the prediction timeframe are presented in a scenario describing some possibilities on how the 2001 prediction may have been utilized to reduce significant damage, including damage to the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and to show prudent cost- effective actions can be taken if the prediction certainty is known, but not necessarily high. The purpose of this paper is to show how the prediction information can be strategically used to enhance disaster preparedness and reduce future impacts from the world’s largest earthquakes. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The world’s largest earthquakes are predictable within time, space, and magnitude ranges having limited but known accuracy. The March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, off shore of the Tohoku region, (herein called the Tohoku Earthquake) was detected years in advance using a combined earthquake prediction algorithm called M8–MSc, which is based on premonitory seismicity patterns and prior to this prediction had been validated by predictions-in-advance. The prediction was initially announced in mid-2001 nearly ten years in advance of the earthquake using a standard protocol to a restricted group of experts and identified the possibility of a magnitude (M) 8.0 or greater earthquake occurring in an area covering northern Honshu and Hokkaido. The M8 earth- quake prediction algorithm has at least a 70% success rate of importance to disaster managers for predicting great Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2212-4209/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2012.03.001 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 213 367 0855; fax: þ1 213 367 3792. E-mail addresses: craig.davis@ladwp.com (C. Davis), vkb@ess.ucla.edu (V. Keilis-Borok), volodya@mitp.ru (V. Kossobokov), soloviev@mitp.ru (A. Soloviev). International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 1 (2012) 17–32