8.9 Earthquake hits Japan!!

[Breygon]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110311/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake

That's a big quake.

(I hope) our thoughts and prayers, or the athiest equivelent there-of, are with the People of Japan.

 

[Adam Tickles]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110311/ap_on_re_as/as_japan_earthquake

That's a big quake.

(I hope) our thoughts and prayers, or the athiest equivelent there-of, are with the People of Japan.

Agreed.. i hope there was minimal damage or loss of life :/ was a double wammy with a quake and a tsunami afterwards!

Is it me or are these natural disasters becoming more and more frequent across the world?.. Flooding in Australia for crying out loud !! not to mention the rest over the past 10 or so years.

Think mother nature is starting to rear her head and is looking to bite us on the arse bit by bit !.... Good ol' global warming ::scared
:stickoutpissedscared:blink

 

[Mash]

If I'm not mistaken, it is the 7th largest Earthquake ever recorded.

Agreed.. i hope there was minimal damage or loss of life :/ was a double wammy with a quake and a tsunami afterwards!

Well, the Tsunami was caused by the displacement of water from the Earthquake. That's how most, if not all, Tsunami's are formed.

Unfortunately, considering how close the Earthquake was to the coast of Japan, I find it unlikely that there was a low casualty rate. They didn't have much time to prepare for it.

Think mother nature is starting to rear her head and is looking to bite us on the arse bit by bit !.... Good ol' global warming

Well, I don't think this was caused by global warming. Deep sea earthquakes like this are almost always caused by tectonic plates crashing into each other. In this case, it was most likely the Pacific plate and the North American plate colliding.

Plus, the weather we're experiencing is out of the norm, but considering how little time the human race has occupied the Earth, we haven't seen even a fraction of the chaos that this planet can dish out in terms of weather/geological events.

All of the extremes that we have ever read about have happened prior to the human race developing. (The ice-ages, large volcanic eruptions, huge Earthquakes, Asteroid impacts, etc.)

 

[Jaynin]

Agreed.. i hope there was minimal damage or loss of life :/ was a double wammy with a quake and a tsunami afterwards!

Is it me or are these natural disasters becoming more and more frequent across the world?.. Flooding in Australia for crying out loud !! not to mention the rest over the past 10 or so years.

Think mother nature is starting to rear her head and is looking to bite us on the arse bit by bit !.... Good ol' global warming ::scared
:stickoutpissedscared:blink

Seeing tsunami waves that were on fire roll across farmland in Sendai makes me doubt that there was minimal damage. It was actually kind of sobering to watch - I've never seen a tsunami before, and instead of some huge wave that just clobbered everything and went back to sea, it was this slow-moving wall of water that just kept going and going and ruining everything in its path - a tsunami, once it hits land, isn't just water but also garbage and debris, and it gets into everything it touches.

 

[Chris Prime]

(I hope) our thoughts and prayers, or the athiest equivelent there-of, are with the People of Japan.

Same here. Hope things go better soon.

 

[the_jimmy_james]

Seeing tsunami waves that were on fire roll across farmland in Sendai makes me doubt that there was minimal damage. It was actually kind of sobering to watch - I've never seen a tsunami before, and instead of some huge wave that just clobbered everything and went back to sea, it was this slow-moving wall of water that just kept going and going and ruining everything in its path - a tsunami, once it hits land, isn't just water but also garbage and debris, and it gets into everything it touches.

And now we go out to our man on the scene. Jaynin, will you be able to keep us up-to-date from where you're at?

 

[ticklebug101]

My thoughts and prayers being sent out to every one in Japan x

 

[CPSUI]

cry
I am praying for them.

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

Floods in Australia, blizzards in the USA, volcanic eruptions in Iceland, earthquakes and tsunamis in Asia, and wars in the middle east? Christ...I don't wanna know what's next!

 

[tickle_fan031]

It's awful. Seeing the events unfold is like what you would expect to see in a film not on the news.

Prayers go out to all those affected by it. x

 

[CellarDweller]

Thoughts and prayers to everyone in Japan.

From what I just read on Yahoo, they expect the death toll to go over 1,000 between the earthquake and tsunami.

 

[PurpleStyle]

Damn sending your worthless prayers, send money for relief aid.

 

[Inverse]

Seeing tsunami waves that were on fire roll across farmland in Sendai makes me doubt that there was minimal damage. It was actually kind of sobering to watch - I've never seen a tsunami before, and instead of some huge wave that just clobbered everything and went back to sea, it was this slow-moving wall of water that just kept going and going and ruining everything in its path - a tsunami, once it hits land, isn't just water but also garbage and debris, and it gets into everything it touches.

Everyone is talking about this tsunami, but reading this sobering this created imagery that just makes me want to be silent for a minute and just recognize our fragility. The things people have lost. The lives~ there's just nothing to say. Nothing meaningful. All prayer does is self-medicate at this point. This happened~ and I can't even begin to imagine how this country picks up the pieces.

 

[Mash]

I'm actually curious about where they're getting their death toll estimates. From what I understand, a city of 70,000 people disappeared over the course of five minutes, and from that they estimated that 1/70 of those people died.

Sorry, but that's just painfully optimistic. If a city that large was trashed, then we're looking at a 5 digit number on the death tolls.

 

[Rox_My_Sox1]

I'm just glad that that nuclear reactor didn't go critical (even if it's cooling systems failed).

 

[Mash]

Ugh. Yeah. Would be troublesome to have a bunch of radioactive matter dumped into the pacific.

 

[Jaynin]

I'm actually curious about where they're getting their death toll estimates. From what I understand, a city of 70,000 people disappeared over the course of five minutes, and from that they estimated that 1/70 of those people died.

Sorry, but that's just painfully optimistic. If a city that large was trashed, then we're looking at a 5 digit number on the death tolls.

However, the people of Japan and its government agencies are well aware that earthquakes and tsunamis are a threat to them; I would imagine that within minutes of the earthquake occurring there they had a tsunami and earthquake evacuation alert sounded, and they don't fool around with those. Assuming that no one knew it was coming until it hit them isn't really accurate.

And now we go out to our man on the scene. Jaynin, will you be able to keep us up-to-date from where you're at?

I'm actually about as far away as one could get from the danger zone, but we were all watching the live television footage in the office.

 

[Mash]

However, the people of Japan and its government agencies are well aware that earthquakes and tsunamis are a threat to them; I would imagine that within minutes of the earthquake occurring there they had a tsunami and earthquake evacuation alert sounded, and they don't fool around with those. Assuming that no one knew it was coming until it hit them isn't really accurate.

Not saying they didn't see it coming. There's a difference in being able to see the event coming, and being able to react in time, though.

From what I understand they only had like 8 minutes to get out of there. Of course, this information could be wrong, and they could have had more time...but based on the information of a city of 70,000 people having 8 minutes to evacuate...I don't care how organized the Japanese government is; any coastal city would have had it's population annihilated.

However, this is on the assumption that the information is all accurate. Eight minutes seems a little low to me. I'll have to look up exactly where the epicenter of the quake was.

 

[11225]

How awful for something like this to happen to so many people! For some, it's nature....but I think the planet is mad.

Ok..that sounded out of nowhere from me. So I truly hope everyone in Japan is alright....

 

[Inverse]

Earthquakes affect a lot of the culture in Japan. It's pretty heavily believed that an earthquake is within its fate even more catastrophic than this~ and because of it, I think that mentality may have spared more lives in this incident than if it had not. There's so little one can do when these natural disasters happen, but if anyone can survive this, it's the Japanese.

 

[FeatherDaemon1]

Earthquakes affect a lot of the culture in Japan. It's pretty heavily believed that an earthquake is within its fate even more catastrophic than this~ and because of it, I think that mentality may have spared more lives in this incident than if it had not. There's so little one can do when these natural disasters happen, but if anyone can survive this, it's the Japanese.

From what I understand there were some good sized tremors leading up to this big one. So there was a little warning to at least initiate basic earthquake measures. Earthquake preparedness and disaster drills are a major initiative in Japan. Even with that being said it is impossible to predict an Earthquake of this magnitude. The tsunami is a totally different story it is pretty hard to defend against a flood of that size. The Great Kanto Quake killed over a 100,000 so they do understand they need preparedness and they pretty much have that down. I am sure that saved a good many lives.

As a side note I happen to be reading Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven at the moment. For those who haven't read it is the story of a comet hitting the Earth. The news that is coming out of Japan could be words that I am reading in the book. The book is obviously worse, however, it is so eerily similar that it is chilling.

Jaynin, I am glad to hear that you are OK. I have a cousin who is teaching with JET up in Hokkaido. She sent us her peremptory I am OK message.

 

[Mash]

On the topic of this Earthquake...would you all like to see something horrifying?

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2011/03/i_hope_these_people_arent_your/GodBlessAmerica.php

Behold. I present to you, a fine example of retarded American patriotism. These stupid rednecks believe that the Japanese deserve this; considering it 'payback' for bombing pearl harbor.

Now, I want you guys to think back waaaaaay to 1945. Anything special about that year? I'll give you a hint; it involves two Japanese cities, two large explosions, and was called the Manhattan project.
Any 'payback' necessary for Pearl Harbor was exacted 5-6 times over when we dropped two Nuclear weapons on Japanese cities.

Patriots, I beg of you, don't open your mouth if you have the memory of a goldfish and a sub-80 IQ.

 

[solleticoso1]

A sub 80 I.Q., do you say?

I think anyone think that a nation "deserves" an heartquake because of what their grand-grandfather have done 66 years before... would just be very fortunate, if reach a 40 points I. Q.

That was just my opinion (and my English is very bad, as usual... sorry!).

 

[Kenjisan]

From what I understand they only had like 8 minutes to get out of there. Of course, this information could be wrong, and they could have had more time...but based on the information of a city of 70,000 people having 8 minutes to evacuate...I don't care how organized the Japanese government is; any coastal city would have had it's population annihilated.

The thing is, no one knows how big the death toll is. There is little to no communication infrastructure remaining in the hardest hit areas, so it will be a matter of sorting out the living from the dead, and this will take weeks. It is foolish for any government to just announce speculative death tolls right out without confirmation.

Japan's populace tends to have families fairly spread out over the country. Many people will migrate to the bigger cities, leaving their families behind in smaller communities, but visiting a few times a year. The last thing Japan needs is chaos in the affected area, so it just doesn't make sense to say that "all 45,000 in MinamiSanriku are feared dead" when it's only been two days.

 

[Jaynin]

On the topic of this Earthquake...would you all like to see something horrifying?

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2011/03/i_hope_these_people_arent_your/GodBlessAmerica.php

Behold. I present to you, a fine example of retarded American patriotism. These stupid rednecks believe that the Japanese deserve this; considering it 'payback' for bombing pearl harbor.

Now, I want you guys to think back waaaaaay to 1945. Anything special about that year? I'll give you a hint; it involves two Japanese cities, two large explosions, and was called the Manhattan project.
Any 'payback' necessary for Pearl Harbor was exacted 5-6 times over when we dropped two Nuclear weapons on Japanese cities.

Patriots, I beg of you, don't open your mouth if you have the memory of a goldfish and a sub-80 IQ.

Good lord, that's almost physically sickening to read.