Major Japan Earthquake!

**Tracon** · March 10th, 2011, 22:39

Japan hit by 8.9 quake less than an hour ago!

Are you guys watching the footage on CNN?! This is incredibly scary stuff. It is nothing but tremors and tsunami's now. Harbors are completely flooded and airports are all but buried.

TURN ON CNN.

**W. Bleddyn** · March 10th, 2011, 22:41

I am watching it on Al Jazeera but yeah, major damage.

***Francois*** · March 10th, 2011, 23:19

http://livemovietv.blogspot.com/2011...#ixzz1GHA0GZDg

**demorier** · March 10th, 2011, 23:25

They are really copping a bashing over there at the moment...Japan's turn this time...who's next...gulp.

***wombat666*** · March 11th, 2011, 00:42

Tsunami warnings are in place for regions as far away as Indonesia and all points between.
No idea of China but I imagine they will feel some effects.
Last I heard a couple of hours ago the estimated height is around 4 Metres and the undersea quake was between 7 and 8 on the Richter scale.

**W. Bleddyn** · March 11th, 2011, 00:57

Now the warnings include Canadian and US west coast as well. Some of the Pacific Islands in the path are lower then the height of the wave so they won't fare well. I have two friends in Guam who met and married while in the service and decided to stay on there as civvies. My thoughts are with them and anyone else in the path of this.

**edit - man Wiki people are fast. I looked up that Sendai Airport that we keep seeing flooded and the wiki entry already mentions this in the airport's history.

On a hopefully bright side Taiwan has passed the ETA of the wave some time ago with no discernible impact. We can hope that means it is dissipating faster then expected.

***Rami*** · March 11th, 2011, 02:15

Originally Posted by demorier

They are really copping a bashing over there at the moment...Japan's turn this time...who's next...gulp.

This is one of the unfortunate consequences of living on the "ring of fire." It's plate tectonics.

http://geography.about.com/cs/earthq...ringoffire.htm

**boxcar** · March 11th, 2011, 03:36

.
Midway Island reported an 8 footer. Hawaii to know within a half hour or so.
There is at least one nuke power plant in Japan that is presently unable to pump cooling water... major bad.

One day this will happen off of our Oregon coast. We're due.

.

**igacci** · March 11th, 2011, 04:31

I'm stack in a McDnald's on my way home. It seems I have to spend a night here.

Tokyo is genarally OK.
Commuter trains are all stopped and lots of people are wandering on the street to seek somewhere to spend a night in a warm environment.

There are town-scale blackout in some metropolitan area and suberbs of Tokyo.
Shops are closing earlier than usual.

Airport is closing.
Traficcs are jammed.

Situation is becoming far worse in northan part of Japan.
There are still large afterquakes continues.
There are reports that relatively old buildings are collapsed .
Never-seen-before scale tsunamis are hitting, swallowing cars and houses with people.
There are a few tens of confirmed casualities and numers of people are missing.

There are a lot of earth quakes every year, but this one was the first that I felt scared and I might have been killed.

Dear friend simmers, plz keep your fingers crossed for us, especially in need of immediate help.

Ragerds

Daisuke

***grunau_baby*** · March 11th, 2011, 04:42

Keeping my fingers crossed for the people involved. Even though Japan seems to be kind of used to earthquakes, this is so much worse! I am shocked!

Alex

**aeromed202** · March 11th, 2011, 04:45

What a disaster. Imagine how much worse it would be without the specially constructed buildings. The ring has been active recently and I fear for California, it's been too quiet there.

They're crossed Daisuke!

**Maarten -** · March 11th, 2011, 05:20

My thoughts and best vibes for their safety go out to all people concerned. My heart goes out to all affected by this immense disaster.

Please good care of yourselves and others,
Maarten

**paiken** · March 11th, 2011, 05:32

My thoughts go out to the people of Japan. 8.9 on the Richter scale is massive. To quote from the USGS website on how the scale is measured...
"On the Richter Scale, magnitude is expressed in whole numbers and decimal fractions. For example, a magnitude 5.3 might be computed for a moderate earthquake, and a strong earthquake might be rated as magnitude 6.3. Because of the logarithmic basis of the scale, each whole number increase in magnitude represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude; as an estimate of energy, each whole number step in the magnitude scale corresponds to the release of about 31 times more energy than the amount associated with the preceding whole number value."
I emphasised the part in red so you could get a feel for just how massive this quake is. Wow.

**olaf1924** · March 11th, 2011, 06:52

The damage looks like the movie 2012 but it is real this time.

**CH_OldZeke** · March 11th, 2011, 07:04

Absolutly terrifying to watch. My heart goes out to all affected.

**CG_1976** · March 11th, 2011, 07:17

My thoughts and prays are with all involved with this tragic event. I have been just informed that the Aleutian islands has just been hit by a a small tsunami.

**Matt Wynn** · March 11th, 2011, 07:28

bad day indeed... my thoughts go out to everyone affected by this quake and tsunami... scary thing is Lunar Perigee isn't till march 18th (Point where it's closest to earth and exerts the most gravitational pull on our planet) that may cause some bad weather or worse...

again my thoughts and prayers to all it has affected...

***Crusader*** · March 11th, 2011, 10:52

My thoughts go out to the Japanese people . This is absolutely a devastating tragedy . Here is hope for a smooth and safe rebuild of your country . I was stationed in Japan in 1966(Iwakuni) and although we never experienced a quake we were always very vigilant and had emergency plans in case it did happen .

Rich

**warchild** · March 11th, 2011, 12:25

If it wasnt for Japans continued vigilance for all these decades, the death count could have been magnitudes worse. The tsunami will also impact borneo,the Philippines, australia, new zealand, the US, and south america to various lesser degrees.. I'll be keeping a special place in my heart for all the victims of this disaster..
Pam

**boxcar** · March 11th, 2011, 12:39

.
Aftermath felt strongly here stateside as well: Crescent City, California's harbor effectively destroyed by an 8+ foot tsunami wave not long ago:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/...CBSNews.com%29

5 swept out to sea, one still missing (a man who went down to the docks to photograph the tsunami's arrival).

My heart & thoughts go out to the many people affected & who will be affected in the coming hours..

**rayrey10** · March 11th, 2011, 14:15

I saw it on the news this morning, and thank goodness for technology, I was able to text my son who is stationed in Iwakuni and got an immediate reply from him that he was fine. The base is far from the center of the earthquake. He said they were just waiting for word on what their part of the relief effort was going to be.

My thoughts and payers go out for the people of Japan!

**pilottj** · March 11th, 2011, 15:14

I lived in Nagoya, Japan in the early 90s and was there when the Kobe earthquake hit. Nagoya is some distance from the Kobe area but I felt it very well. Our apartment had the living area on one end and my bedroom was on the other end. It was early in the morning and I was starting to wake up, I heard the dishes rattling in kitchen, then things rattling in the hall and my case of models rattling, then my bed, and away it went...it was very eerie, like a wave. Later that year our school visited the Kobe area as part of a relief team, the devistation was too hard to describe. I can only imagine what this will look like when the dust starts to settle.

TJ

**warchild** · March 11th, 2011, 15:39

I'm looking for family members in japan of Nobuaki Takahashi ( Takahashi Nobuaki ) and tricia Okamura. Both are professors at Eastern Carolina university and friends of a very dear friend.. Please if someone can give me a clue over the next day or so, i would greatly appreciate it.. woulf give more data but thats all i have to go on besides the fact that they cant be found or contacted at this time, which to me means they're in northeastern Japan somewhere..
Thanks..
Pam

***srgalahad*** · March 11th, 2011, 17:27

Google has activated their People Finder app

For Pam, or anyone else who seeks/has contact with people at risk in Japan, go here:

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse...quake2011.html

and click the appropriate link in the box

(I generally don't have much love for Google, but this is one of their redeeming values)

***Roger*** · March 11th, 2011, 17:40

Dreadful...I have no words since watching the helicopter footage of the tsunami destroying the coastline and zooming in on individual pedestrians and drivers without knowing if they survived.