Why do earthquakes tidal waves and typhoons often strike the Japanese islands?

Answer 1

Earthquakes and tsunamis impact Japan for a different reason than typhoons do.

Japan is located just west of a subduction zone, where one of Earth's tectonic plates slowly slides beneath another. As this happens, the convergin plates periodically snag and build up tension. This tension eventually becomes two much and the crust shift into a more stable position, releasing energy in the form of an earthquake. When these earthquakes happen there can be significant upward and downward movement at different points on the ocean floor. This displaces the water above it, triggering tsunami waves.

A typhoon is basically a hurricane in the western Pacific, a kind of storm called a tropical cyclone. They develop from low pressure systems that are fed by the moisture that evaporates from warm ocean water. Due to the way ocean currents circulate, the best places for such storms to form are in the western portions of ocean basins. When the storms form the usually start out moving west and then often turn northward. This carries many storms toward Japan. The islands of Japan are at the same latitude as the eastern Coast of the United States, which is prone to hurricanes. In this case, though, the western Pacific is an even greater producer of tropical cyclones than the Atlantic is.