WATCH| Timelapse of the 2011 tsunami crossing the Pacific in 23 hours

A haunting timelapse of the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami have surfaced offering a chilling reminder of how quickly the disaster spread from one end to the other end of the globe. The 9.1M earthquake struck the north east coast of Honshu- Japan's main island- at 2:46 pm in local time on March 11, 2011. It created a tsunami of up to 56ft high that washed inland and destroyed everything in its path.

A model of the 2011 tsunami was created by Tohoku University, propagating through the Pacific Ocean from Japan to the Chilean coast in South America, with half of the wave energy arriving within 23 hours after the quake. Just three hours after the earthquake in Honshu, it reached Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, within approximately 9 hours it had hit the Gulf of Alaska, around 14-16 hours it had reached the coast of Mexico, and eventually reached the shores of South America by 20-23 hours. The 2011 Tsunami's speed and scale were unprecedented, opening the eyes for an urgent early tsunami alert mechanism and upgraded coastal defence systems.