Japanese Earthquake really, REALLY bad...

[GeorgeC]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/artic ... dvice.html


Apparently, it was caused by an upward shift of the North American tectonic plate. Massive energy release resulting in the quake and a tsunami that slammed into the eastern coast of Japan. Cars, houses, and boats were swallowed up by the tsunami. Some reports of a cruise liner missing. The main quake was followed by 20 lesser quakes of up to 6.0 magnitude. The main quake was 8.9! (1,000 times worse than the aftershock quakes and 8,000 times more powerful than the Christchurch, New Zealand quake last month.)

Reports of at least 1,000 people killed with damage around much of Tokyo.

Worst reports are of the coolant in a nuclear reactor failing. USAF is flying in coolant to deal with "that little problem."

Definitely sounds like the worst quake to hit Japan since the 1995 Kobe quake that levelled a lot of that city.

Pray for these folks... They need it!



UPDATE: Reports on the USAF transporting coolant were false...

Some of the nuclear plants have been settled down and the temperatures are under control. At least one plant is potentially headed towards meltdown and there are reports of at least 3 plant workers at one site being exposed to higher than average radiation.

At least two US carriers in the vicinity of Japan are headed with medical supplies and food for relief...
The carrier medical facilities and personnel will be used to augment Japanese hospitals to treat victims.

Several coastal villages and towns were completed wiped out... Houses, cars, trains, boats were carried off by the tsunami waves.
One town of 17,000 lost roughly two-thirds (10,000) of its people in the tsunami.

Preliminary reports suggest as many as 88,000 people --- perhaps more --- lost their lives in the quake and following tsunami.

There have been reports of the Japanese coast guard spotting as many as 300 bodies floating amongst the debris scattered by the tsunami.

I don't think when all is said and done that Japan has seen anything like this since at least World War II...

For those that can spare it, find a trustworthy charity and donate what you can spare.
For the rest, a prayer or kind word can still do wonders...

[droosan]

My mom finally heard from my aunt and cousins in Japan .. they are without power, but are otherwise all safe. They live about 300 miles from the epicenter (and well inland), but they still got a long sustained shaking.

NHK just reported an explosion at one of the affected nuclear plants. That definitely does not sound good. Japan will be cleaning up after this one for years, as it is.

Please consider a donation to overseas relief agencies, if you can at all afford it.

And -- if you live in an earthquake-prone area, yourself -- now is a good time to review your own earthquake preparedness kits, food/water supplies, furniture straps, etc.

[Randall]

Even my wife's family in The Philippines was affected. They spent last night sitting on a mountain, as the town below was flooded by the tsunami. As far as we know, they're otherwise okay. Given how far away The Philippines is from Japan, there must be a lot of islands in-between that were affected as well, which are too tiny to make the news.

We're watching the news closely, and I'll reiterate the importance of making a relief agency donation. Our hearts go out to the Japanese people, and anyone else affected.

[Ben]

Devastating news, to which we are glued to here for developments. So glad to hear that relations to people here are safe, and indeed if you can give, please do donate to relief efforts.

[entinee]

Is the Japan earthquake another sign of impending doom? With more and more disasters happening more frequently, is the earthquake that hit Japan just confirmation at this point? Thoughts?
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[droosan]

People who start with 'impending doom' as a premise tend to see the 'patterns' which they want to see.


As the philosopher William Joel once said .. "the fire's been burning since the world's been turning."

IOW: natural disasters and wars happen. BIG disasters and BIG wars also happen, occasionally. Both can be found peppered throughout recorded history .. and evidence of the former even stretches deep into pre-history.


IMO, it's the '24-hour-news' cycle and the modern instant-social-media-saturation which makes these events seem to happen with greater frequency.

[EricJ]

While I'm sure entinee's spam link has been removed--

No one has yet been tasteless enough to make inappropriate Godzilla jokes about Japan's quake/nuclear troubles, but some movie buffs have already made the obvious (if prophetic) Akira Kurosawa reference:



(Well, okay, that's exaggerating it somewhat, but still... 0_0'' )

[Ben]

No one has yet been tasteless enough to make inappropriate Godzilla jokes about Japan's quake/nuclear troubles...

Did you just not get worryingly and inappropriately close?

[GeorgeC]

IMO, it's the '24-hour-news' cycle and the modern instant-social-media-saturation which makes these events seem to happen with greater frequency.

Yeah, no kidding!

A few things about this unfortunate event have been overblown.

The west coast of the US, let alone Hawaii, are NOT going to get super-satured with radioactive fallout from the meltdown reactors in Japan. The worst nuclear accident to happen in the US, Three Mile Island, didn't really produce much more than a puff, either. DON'T go to your pharmacy and ask for iodine tablets because you will NOT be personally affected. It's better that the supply goes to people with thryoid conditions who really need it (in the US) as well as the Japanese who WILL need the medicine for preventative care. Namely, the extra radiation in Japan will mean some people will have a much higher chance of thyroid cancer in the future and taking the medicine IF they need it now will reduce that chance.

Yes, some people have been exposed to higher-than-normal levels of radiation -- say a NORMAL MONTH'S WORTH in a single day. This is still many, many times less than Chernobyl.

Chernobyl had its own myths, too. People in Europe thought THEY were going to get mega-dosed with radiation and all studies on the past 25 years have shown no abnormal levels of radiation in the general population NOR increases in cancer rates. Yes, the people immediately around the Chernobyl complex got large doses (and most have died horribly since then) and the effects of the radiation spread out to at least 100 square miles or so in the area of Russia/Ukraine where the accident occurred.

Guess what? People (researchers) have been back to villages and towns that were evacuated and while the background radiation IS still higher than normal life is returning as animals and plant resettle and replace the life struck dead by the radiation in '86.

For that matter, Nagasaki and Hiroshima were destroyed by A-bombs in 1945 but still exist today. The cities WERE rebuilt. While there is still a 'hot spot' or two in the cities, the danger to the general public doesn't exist anymore. The fallout produced by the bombs has long since dissipated and it's safe to live in those cities. People will go back and conquer the problems caused by quake and tsunami this year and life WILL go on.