On March 11 at 1:46pm BJT a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake occurred near the northeastern coast of Japan, creating extremely destructive tsunami waves which hit Japan just minutes after the earthquake, and triggering evacuations and warnings across the Pacific Ocean. The earthquake and tsunami have caused extensive and severe damage in Northeastern Japan, leaving thousands of people confirmed dead, injured or missing, and millions more affected by lack of electricity, water and transportation.

Researcher Jiang Liming monitored the disaster using high resolution images of TerraSAR-X satellite. After comparing the TerraSAR-X radar images before and after the hit the tsunami disaster triggered by earthquake was presented clearly.

The picture below is RGB false color synthesize image whose background is the SAR interference data (Red-coherence image,Green-mean image of SAR intensity,Blue-ratio image of SAR intensity) the red region is the flood area recognised.