JOIN USThe cataclysmic mega-quake sent a tsunami ruthlessly bulldozing its way through streets and homes, obliterating towns and settlements and critically damaging the Fukushima nuclear reactors.
Scientists from the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in Seattle have released an extraordinary recording of the sound of the magnitude-9 earthquake, reports the Daily Mail.
Captured by an underwater microphone called a hydrophone positioned 900 miles away from the epicentre in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, the earthquake's incredible rumbling and roaring is not dissimilar to a train rumbling at high speeds through stations, they said.
The clip, available on YouTube, is sped up 16 times and in the second half the sound becomes almost blurred and muffled as the Earth's crust readjusts hundreds of miles under the ocean.
The initial burst of noise is the P-wave, which stands for "primary" waves and the second louder noise is the sound of the T-wave, or tertiary waves.
Tertiary waves are created when an earthquake occurs under the sea. They are the slowest waves of the three types of waves and are created when their seismic energy goes upwards into the ocean.
As this happens it converts to sound energy making the T-wave.The clip comes as the Japanese are trying to get their nation back on track.