Japan lies at the junction of four tectonic plates, the Pacific, Philippine Sea, Eurasian and North American, making it one of the most seismically active countries on the planet. The Pacific and Philippine Sea plates dive beneath Japan along deep offshore trenches, and this subduction generates thousands of earthquakes each year as well as the magma that feeds the country's many volcanoes.
Japan has more than a hundred active volcanoes, including the iconic Mount Fuji, and its coastlines are highly exposed to tsunamis. The 2011 Tohoku earthquake, magnitude 9.0, unleashed a devastating tsunami that killed around 18,000 people and triggered the Fukushima nuclear accident, while the 1995 Kobe earthquake remains a landmark event in modern disaster preparedness.