Around 3 P.M. local time on Friday, there was a massive earthquake about 100 miles off the east coast of northern Honshu Island , Japan. Initially calculated to be a magnitude 8.9, it has since been upgraded to at least a magnitude 9.0, which means that this earthquake released around 8,000 times more energy than the magnitude 6.3 shock that rocked Christchurch last month . Either way, this is the biggest instrumentally recorded earthquake Japan has ever been shaken by, and is one of the biggest ever detected: it's up there with the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake, and like that earthquake it generated a large - and extremely damaging - tsunami. It's difficult to believe some of the pictures from the Honshu coast as the wave hit.