A biggy in Japan

Another Earthquake for the pacific region, 8.8 and reports of Tsunamis.

Hope there isn’t a big loss of life.

Sky reporting a 3-4 metre tsunami in Tokyo!

Its a bit sobering watching the Tsunami flooding across the fields and catching cars on the roads its crossing.

I hope that helicoptor is using a good zoom (i.e. far away) as that petrochem site looks like its going to go up in one huge fireball.

That wave is horrific, relentless.

I’m glad we live on old and relatively stable geology.

Live coverage on BBC here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598

Just been watching the live coverage – bloody hell thats horrendous, people trying to flee on roads as the continuous wall of water just destroys everything in its seemingly never ending path 😯

I wonder if its because of the Supermoon. 😯

I switched to Sky as BBC News were still fitting it in between other items half an hour ago. I notice the camera tends to pan away if they catch scenes where people or moving vehicles are getting caught.

Milkie, no, unusual tides etc yes, but I can’t imagine it would trigger an earthquake, and the Tsunami is a direct result of the earthquake.

I notice the camera tends to pan away if they catch scenes where people or moving vehicles are getting caught.

Yep, thats the bits I saw, sickening 🙁

Scary. Best mate lives in Tokyo.

Best coverage is on Al Jazeera English. As usual.
7.x magnitude aftershocks, which is mental. Nuclear plants being shut down in Japan, but their fuel rod cooling systems aren’t coming online as expected, which is bad. Pretty much anywhere with a Pacific coastline on tsunami watch. DART buoys are measuring somewhere between a 1-2m wave tracking across the ocean. Doesn’t sound much, but a 1m wave in 6-mile deep water translates to a frickin’ huge wave when it hits coastal waters. Hawaii and Indonesia due to be hit round about 1-1:30pm our time.
Some earthquake watcher/geologist on another forum has explained that a 8.9 magnitude earthquake is like the surface detonation of a 330 megaton bomb. For comparison, Hiroshima was a ~15 kiloton bomb and the largest ever nuclear detonation, Tsar Bomba, was a ‘mere’ 50 megaton. A frightening amount of energy released.
I’m now sacking off work to go and sit in the TV room.

Oh I didn’t see this thread, started my own – oops.

One of my Facebook friends has friends in Japan posting about their families with whom they can’t get in touch.. 🙁

BBC man is saying that the tsunami might completely swamp some Pacific islands.

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

(The Flying Ox live Al Jazeera English streaming here
http://english.aljazeera.net/demandaljazeera/ )

it looks horrific! the biggest earthquake for over 100 years they reckon.i hope not too many people get injured/killed.i would say all people,but unfortunately there have been people killed.that wave was just taking everything in it’s way like matchsticks.there seems to be a few happening around the globe.i feel lucky to live somewhere where we don’t get earthquakes.

Milkie, no, unusual tides etc yes, but I can’t imagine it would trigger an earthquake, and the Tsunami is a direct result of the earthquake.

Read on the interweb, which never lies, that the gravitational pull of the moon could affect the magma below the crust, especially as its coming up to the closest its been in 19 years on March 19th. Everytime this happens there are extreme weather changes and stuff. But the way I see it is it cannot really be proved if its the moon or coincidence.. I’ll go with the moon, supermoon!

Whacked it on the projector in class, an amazing but horrendous site

I do feel for them all!

I was watching the Sky coverage on one of the work computers and it’s just unbelievable, you just can’t comprehend the scale of what you’re seeing. Terrifying.
There’s also the worrying prospect of further quakes around the Pacific Rim as well, if I lived in California, especially SF, I’d be getting a bit apprehensive. Oddly enough a collection of colour photos of the 1912 SF quake have come to light in the Smithsonian. Amazing quality, too.

I was watching a bit this morning with some crazy guy wandering along a bridge watching the torrent – I don’t suppose he realised how much of a battering the bridge was taking (you could see it physically shaking with the force). :-O

just shown pictures of a huge explosion at an oil refinery on the bbc, the scale of this is staggering.

It is truly staggering – can’t keep my eyes off the coverage.

I saw that. The water was rising in seconds, not minutes like in flash floods.

My mate was on 24th floor in Tokyo, said it was pretty grim, gas storage place nearby exploded, they were all evacuated then allowed back in to get their belongings.

Images of the wave crossing an airport are awesome. Looks like a horror film never mind a disaster film.

Just got word from my sister that our brother in Tokyo, and his wife and kids are okay, 🙂

Obviously, a lot more families in northern Japan are not so fortunate 🙁

Truly amazing footage on the news channels. I hope the aftershocks are not too severe.

Crapping hell. Its going to be worse than the 95 Kyoto earthquake.

Just caught a bit on the footage of the wave smothering the country, and on the other side of the shot is a car speeding down the road trying to escape. Sh*t 🙁

Hora – apparently it is the worst quake to hit Japan in 300 years :-O

I was supposed to be in Tokyo on Monday, looks like that isn’t happening now!

Hearing from some very shocked people

japan has declared a nuclear emergency, due to failure of the cooling system of one of it’s reactors.

:-O jeebus

Oh crud.

Good lord. I think if you lived in certain parts of the world you could be forgiven for believing the apocalypse was here.

Check out the number of earthquakes still happening in Japan:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

Mme Moonteresse is on holiday in Hawaii, she has been evacuated to higher ground.

Just got off fb were a few of my fb friends i often talk to are waiting for it to hit in the philippines,we might live in a country with crap weather but are so lucky in many ways.

I spoke to a close friend a short while ago who was out in Tokyo and Sendai last November; she has friends all around the region, so she’s desperately worried. She has Japanese tourists at her hotel, and Japanese seasonal staff, so has a big connection to the country, and I’ve got to know a few quite well over the years, which makes it rather more personal, not just extraordinary pictures on a screen.

oh dear.