8.8 Earthquake Near Japanese Coast 431
radioweather writes "USGS is reporting a 8.8 (was estimated first at 7.9) magnitude earthquake off of the east coast of Honshu, Japan. Details from USGS. Tsunami warning issued. Japan's Meteorological agency is saying 20-foot or higher waves are possible from a Tsunami near Miyagi prefecture."
Look on the bright side (Score:5, Funny)
Look on the bright side - if the tsunami washes over Australia at least it'll put the bushfires out.
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I'm okay. I have a double story house. Maybe should keep my boat on the roof.
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I'm okay. I have a double story house
Last time I checked, a 20-foot wave would roll over the top of most two storey houses.
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I'm okay. I have a double story house
Last time I checked, a 20-foot wave would roll over the top of most two storey houses.
Hence the boat. But I am in Melbourne anyway. The wave would have to do a 270 degree turn around the eastern Victorian coast, traverse the heads of Port Philip bay, charge up the Yarra to Dights Falls, then surge up the Merri creek to East Brunswick, by which time I expect it to be about one micron high.
Bit of a problem for Taiwan and the Philippines though,
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Look on the bright side. After all the destruction they can rebuild it as Mega Tokyo!
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Look on the bright side - if the tsunami washes over Australia at least it'll put the bushfires out.
It was closer to the part of Australia that had the massive floods. The fires were on the far side of the country.
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Look on the bright side - if the tsunami washes over Australia at least it'll put the bushfires out.
It was closer to the part of Australia that had the massive floods. The fires were on the far side of the country.
Just what Queensland needs.
You know I wondered why there was so much salt in Lake Eyre...
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Bloody typical.
Is there time to rig up a really really big pipe?
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Strangely if you watch videos of the Tsnunami, there is actually burning wreckage being washed along on top of it.. so it actually has the potential to set fire to any trees that it doesn't mow down..
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USGS continues to upgrade (Score:5, Informative)
Quake was upgraded to 8.9 some time ago. Also aftershocks continue.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/region/Asia_eqs.php [usgs.gov]
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This is worst than in the movies (Score:5, Informative)
Wave moves slowly and silently inland, and carries parts of houses in full flames (!!!). This is insane.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/03/11/sot.tsunami.hit.japan.cnn?hpt=T1 [cnn.com]
Mother Nature shows it's power. For better or worse.
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Sounds like a cue for a Blue Oyster Cult song...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6rDWqjnW7w [youtube.com]
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Utterly insane footage. I just woke my wife up to show it to her. We had just spent the evening booking a trip to Japan to visit friends in Tokyo.
Fortunately, they're okay.
But, damn. That tidal wave footage left me speechless.
Re:This is worst than in the movies (Score:5, Insightful)
But, damn. That tidal wave footage left me speechless.
Yeah, I was watching what looked like some water washing across a field carrying some garbage and debris in it, then they zoom in and you see the "garbage" is composed of large buildings, and the "little bits of debris" is a bunch of cars and buses. At which point, the whole sense of scale snaps in and you realize that that water that at first looked to be slowly flowing inland is in fact going far, far faster than you could possibly run if it was coming towards you...
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A tsunami like this is technically a wave, but because of its extremely long wavelength, it neither looks nor acts like a normal oceanic wave. A "normal" wave, even a 15 meter monster (higher than this tsunami, but pretty routine in some parts of the world) will basically splash against the shore but not make it more than a few tens of meters inland at most.
A tsunami might not be as high as one of these waves, but it contains a far larger mass of water, with far greater momentum. The effects of a significan
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Thing is, "tsunami flood" would portray issues much better than "tsunami wave" (also because it's virtually unnoticeable in open water)
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And when you see some poor suckers trying to escape that wave with cars - and they fail...
I'm trying to say myself that there is nothing I can or could do. But I wish I could...
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oh fuck off you pedantic prick
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oh fuck off you pedantic prick
Using my +2 to second this.
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>>It's a tsunami, not a tidal wave.
Same thing, dude.
Though the wikipedia entry does recommend disparaging the term 'tidal wave' if you're a pedantic prick.
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Re:This is worst than in the movies (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't believe no one has commented on the guy in the car, turning around on the road, and trying to get away! Hope he made it. :(
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What is more paradoxical that it is possible that he could survive only in his car, allowing water to carry it. If he steps outside, he dies for sure.
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I wonder what would had been the best move in that situation
I think the best move in a flash flood would be to stay in the car for as long as possible but retain the ability to get out when it starts to sink. Judging by the Mythbusters episode this may not be an easy thing to do. The automatic center punch seems to be the best way to break a car window for quick egress.
Toyota Hilux after watching everything they can survive on top gear
I think its the only time they used a toyota in their junk car challenges because they want cars which will break down in amusing ways.
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The thing is, it's not just 1 truck and the water. As you saw from the footage the sheer amount of debris in the water would be your major problem, not drowning just because you're in the water per se.
I think the safest thing that driver could do was to put their foot to the floor and drive as aggressively away from the coast line as they could, trying to stick to the roads and make sure that they don't overcook it going round a corner and blow out a tyre.
It would certainly take some confidence to drive out
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What is an automatic center punch? And yeah, maybe better within than outside but sucks if you get trapped / drown .. Probably not that easy to keep above surface outside either. What's the water temp there?
In the episode I think of they have put the Hilux on top of a building and let explosions (?) destroy the building and let the Hilux fall with the building. And then put it on fire or something such.
Still worked after some minor repair/adjusting/refill/whatever.
Re:This is worst than in the movies (Score:5, Informative)
To drill a hole in a metal surface you need to start by creating a little depression so that the drill won't slide around. A manual center punch is a short steel rod. The sharp end goes against the metal surface. The blunt end you hit with a hammer. An automatic center punch has a spring between the sharp and blunt ends. You press the blunt end so that energy collects in the spring. When sufficient energy is collected the sharp end snaps out all at once and makes the dimple in the surface. Glass is brittle and fails catastrophically under concentrated load. If your car floods you may not be able to open a window because pressure will stop it sliding. My automatic center punch cost 12 aussie bucks at a hardware store. I keep it in my van, and another in my tool kit where it actually gets used for its intended purpose.
Re:This is worst than in the movies (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This is worst than in the movies (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is worst than in the movies (Score:5, Insightful)
You keep posting this same moronic crap on every story about natural disasters. Where is this magical place on Earth that is free from natural disasters (earthquake, tsunami, volcano, flood, drought, extreme cold, extreme heat, hurricane, tornado, blizzard, typhoon, mudslide, avalanche, wild fire, ...)? And yes, you do get to cry when one befalls you. And yes, people will help you out, because most of civilization has compassion and empathy for others.
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Denmark [wikipedia.org]?
I think the biggest "natural disasters" in Denmark is lots of snow, and even then it's only a disaster in the sense that "it's more than we're used to".
Extreme temperatures [www.dmi.dk]? Lowest recorded temperature: -31.2 C/24.2 F. Highest recorded temperature: 36.4 C/97.5 F
Most precipitatio
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Denmark?
All right, you've covered 0.03 % of the earth's surface, there.
Assuming we manage to cram some absolutely astounding population density into that country, where should the other 6.75 billion humans live?
8.9 Now, Tsunamis Ahead (Score:5, Informative)
Since Slashdot summaries are always a bit dated, it's been bumped up to an 8.9 by the USGS [usgs.gov]. The good news is that it was off-shore and 15.2mi down, the bad news is that it was off-shore and generated a large tsunami that is still wrecking havoc in Japan and may be heading elsewhere.
Best of luck to the Japanese; if anyone is prepared it's them, but I don't know how one prepares for something quite like this.
Meanwhile for the US there are active tsunami warnings in Hawaii, and NOAA has just issued a watch for the US West Coast [noaa.gov].
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To be fair, this is pretty fast by /. standards (though I expect a dupe next week).
Re:8.9 Now, Tsunamis Ahead (Score:5, Funny)
(though I expect a dupe next week)
It's called an aftershock... :P
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In all fairness, the EAS alert I heard as I was reading your comment said it was 8.8, as well.
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Its an 8.8 on the 7 point scale.
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Complementary scales. The Japanese shindo scale describes the effects on a particular point on the surface; this is rather more practically relevant for people in the area than the amount of energy released at the source. So the one and same earthquake is a seven around Sendai, a five near Tokyo and a two in the Osaka area.
Local News (Score:5, Informative)
largest earthquake since 300 years
nuclear power plants affected but nothing leaked
some factory at the coast started burning, they're showing it over and over again
8 people so far found dead
tsunami along almost the entire coast, 3meter to 10meters
It's very bad,
They're also warning of another earthquake which is predicted to happen shortly
Re:Local News (Score:5, Informative)
Warnings for entire Pacific area in effect! (Score:4, Informative)
Japan already got smashed. Further warnings for:
RUSSIA / MARCUS IS. / N. MARIANAS / GUAM / WAKE IS. /
TAIWAN / YAP / PHILIPPINES / MARSHALL IS. / BELAU / MIDWAY IS. /
POHNPEI / CHUUK / KOSRAE / INDONESIA / PAPUA NEW GUINEA /
NAURU / JOHNSTON IS. / SOLOMON IS. / KIRIBATI / HOWLAND-BAKER /
HAWAII / TUVALU / PALMYRA IS. / VANUATU / TOKELAU / JARVIS IS. /
WALLIS-FUTUNA / SAMOA / AMERICAN SAMOA / COOK ISLANDS / NIUE /
AUSTRALIA / FIJI / NEW CALEDONIA / TONGA / MEXICO /
KERMADEC IS / FR. POLYNESIA / NEW ZEALAND / PITCAIRN /
GUATEMALA / EL SALVADOR / COSTA RICA / NICARAGUA / ANTARCTICA /
PANAMA / HONDURAS / CHILE / ECUADOR / COLOMBIA / PERU
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So far no warnings in effect for California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. Keep watching though and err on the side of caution!
Re:Warnings for entire Pacific area in effect! (Score:5, Informative)
There's a warning out now for the West Cost of the US. Wave expected to hit between 7-7:30 AM PST. Only expected to be 3-4 feet high at this time. Avoid the beach.
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/ [noaa.gov]
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correction, northern and mid cali are under warnings. I live on the 3rd floor of my apartment building, work on the 4th floor and park on the roof of my office, i think i'm covered, though i may have to swim home
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Tsunami warnings, that is.
Re:Warnings for entire Pacific area in effect! (Score:4, Informative)
Estimated travel times of tsunami through Pacific (mirrored/relinked from the media, since NOAA and especially the West Coast Center sites are being hammered right now):
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bild-750254-190518.html [spiegel.de]
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Oh my Gosh... I am flying to Los Angeles next week.
Will LA be affected? Santa Monica?
Nervous... (Score:2)
Sitting here in a house near Seattle, near the water... Part of the NOAA site says there is no alert, part of the website says there *is* an alert - but the page with details is down. Waiting and watching...
Insane! (Score:5, Informative)
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Be safe and stay well, man.
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Not log10, 10^(11.8 + 1.5M) (Score:5, Informative)
Hi,
It's a common misconception that the power of a mag 9 earthquake is 10x more than an 8, or 1,000x that of a 6. It's not. It's more like 31,000x stronger than a 6. If you've ever had the misfortune to experience a 6, you can appreciate that the energy released by these big ones are rather hard to contemplate.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/measure.php [usgs.gov]
1 J = 1e7 erg
1 PJ = 1e15 J
Energy_petajoules = ( 10^(11.8 + 1.5*Ms) ) * 1e-07 * 1e-15
here's a picture of what this looks like [osuosl.org], although ring size scaling has been reduced from the above formula to fit on the screen.
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Double blow for Japan. They lost those students in Chch.
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The Richter scale records the amount of energy released and is obviously useful when comparing Mag 4 with Mag 8. But what it doesn't say is how it is released- long and rumbling (4 1/2 mins IIRC for this one) or shorted in a large, powerful, greater displacement.
Had this driven home in Picton, New Zealand when a Mag 4.5 gave myself and my son a headache, like a punch, but only set the lights swinging, loosening dust, in the library where we were sitting.
West Coast Tsunami warning/watch (Score:4, Informative)
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/2011/03/11/lhvpdd/03/messagelhvpd9-03.htm [noaa.gov]
Tsunami monitoring bouys (Score:5, Informative)
You can see live data from the Tsunami warning bouys here [noaa.gov].
"Supermoon" on Mar 19 (Score:2)
Coincidence?
Re:"Supermoon" on Mar 19 (Score:4, Funny)
supermoon=syzygy at extreme perigee Coincidence?
Are you some kind of lunatic?
A race against time (Score:2)
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A piece of forgotten history: (Score:2, Interesting)
tsunami coming ashore in Hawaii now per cnn (Score:3)
Atomic State Of Emergency (Score:3)
The Japanese government just declared an atomic state of emergency. They are denying that any radiation is being leaked, but admitted that one reactor lost its cooling capacity. People are being evacuated.
In the event of an earthquake, nobody would need to worry about the wind getting lose.
California News Coverage (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not to mention, it seems wrong to submit to authority when s/he does something like this...
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Pray to the god who arbitrarily decided to cause this catastrophe? That makes a load of sense.
It probably does if you are saying "don't do it to me too"! Or in the case of Westboro baptists "please do it to these heathens as well".
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Our lack of understanding is not equivalent to God's arbitrariness.
Also, some people see no difference between causing and permitting, when it is supposed to be the Omnipotent doing either the causing or the permitting.
Everywhere you could live in a real world is dangerous. Would you rather this Omnipotent God put you in an unreal world so you could try to experience life there?
Ah I get it, God is just being "mysterious". That's the usual cop out for these kinds of acts isn't it? When someone survives against the odds it's a "miracle" and when they don't it's merely "god's will". So God decides to snuff out a bunch of people or trash their livelihoods it's just part of some "greater plan". A plan which involves carnage, untold suffering, human misery, terror and pain. God really is a complete shit isn't He? Let's all bow down and give worship to our cruel, random, unprovable spac
Re:Pray (Score:5, Funny)
That would require effort.
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Or is this just another one of those strange religious things, like where the vengeful, hateful and all powerful being is going to condemn us all to to suffer in fire for ever and ever until the end of time - yet somehow still loves us?
No, he's a good guy if you give him a chance; he just sometimes can't help hitting me when I deserve it...
;p ): maltheism [wikipedia.org])
( http://groups.google.com/group/net.religion/msg/30925fd2c9a20cbd? [google.com]
http://groups.google.com/group/net.origins/browse_thread/thread/2511f7a6ccacd6a9/7179db188c826528?lnk=st&q=%22Damager+God%22&rnum=5&pli=1 [google.com]
also, apart from classic dystheism and gnosticism (too bad the Demiurge preffered to brand gnostics as heretics and to supress them...
Bible Belt (Score:3, Funny)
It's strange how God always sends tornadoes to the Bible Belt.
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Yes
Yes, if you want to make the claim that your deity is a good one.
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I was waiting for something to happen after hearing about the massive solar flare yesterday, but nothing this big.
And how is that supposed to work?
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Like an egg in a microwave : )?
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Meaning what? Neutrinos come from the core of the sun at a constant rate. They have nothing to do with solar flares, and the Earth is mostly transparent to them anyway. If they did dump energy into the rock on a small enough scale to cause something like this, then we would feel it too, in our bodies. We don't. Most of the radiation in the flare is stopped by the magnetosphere, the atmosphere and our bodies, where it damages DNA. I would be surprised if it penetrates 10 cm into rock, let alone 25 km.
Do your part to help stamp out pseudoscience (Score:5, Insightful)
when you have massive ejections like yesterdays they can certainly contribute to instability in the Earth's magnetic field, which leads to tectonic shifting.
Er, no. The way the game of "science" is played, one must first show data establishing a valid statistical correlation between coronal mass ejections and earthquakes, then a plausible model establishing causation. Or, present the plausible model establishing causation, and then predict earthquakes to occur in the future, with a success rate that differs from random chance in a statistically significant manner.
The reason the relationship between CMEs and earthquakes is not "a more accepted concept than it is", is that no one has done either of the above. It shouldn't be hard: The occurrence of CMEs varies with the sunspot cycle and, therefore, one would expect a cyclic variation in earthquakes if this hypothesis were true. Note that near the solar maximum we expect two or three CMEs per day, so this has to be figured in, too.
Reviewing your links:
1. The Mukherjee and Mukherjee paper notes that there was increased solar activity, and then an earthquake occurred (the 2001 Gujarat earthquake). In fact, in the "entire world, a total of 65 earthquakes have been reported on the same day". However, there is no evidence presented that that was an unusually high (or low) number of earthquakes for a day, that other earthquakes occurred on similar days with high solar activity, or that they did not occur on days with low solar activity. In fact, some of that data presented -- in particular, the GOES X-Ray flux data -- is irrelevant to the argument, since X-Rays do not affect the Earth's magnetosphere (the protons arriving two days later, do that) and, in any event, they cannot pass through the Earth's atmosphere and so cannot affect the surface (let alone the rock below). Despite the heading of section 2 of the paper, no "correlation" between CMEs and earthquakes is presented -- just a single coincidence. I went to the dentist on 26 January 2001 -- did that also cause the Gujarat earthquake? The same amount of evidence is presented for both hypotheses.
2. The de Arcangelis, et al. paper does not even mention a causal relationship between CMEs and earthquakes. Rather, it notes that the statistical properties of the two phenomena are the same: Their distributions are both power-law. This is interesting, but so is the distribution of Internet links, and a million other phenomena. It's nice work, but does not support your hypothesis.
3. This guy just took a single month's worth of earthquakes and compared it with "solar activity" (without defining the term). Even the author didn't make any conclusions as a result, so why should the reader? Besides, 2010 was one of the quietest years of solar activity in human history -- just wait 'til 2013!
4. Do you have a link to the entire Jain paper, or are you citing the abstract as the reference? Without the paper it's hard to conclude anything, but even in the abstract the author states, "Our investigation preliminarily shows that each earthquake under study was preceded by a solar flare of GOES importance B to X class by 10-100 hrs. However, each flare was not found followed by earthquake of magnitude >4.0." This situation can occur with unrelated events, simply when one (a flare) is more common than another (an earthquake). Note that B-class flares [spaceweather.com] are incredibly common, and in many years this level of energy represents the standard amount of X-ray flux arriving from the sun, without any flares.
All of the above does not prove, or even argue, that CMEs do not cause earthquakes. Rather, it says that no significant evidence of such a link has been established. Until it has, one might argue with equal validity that any other random physical phenomenon does, too.
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Wave after wave, each mightier than the last
'Til last, a ninth wave, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring and all the wave was in a flame
Tennyson, "The Holy Grail"
(though I admit I copied the quite from "The Hounds of Love, by Kate Bush".)
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Artist's impression [blogspot.com] of predicted Pacific rim seismic activity.
Re:Casualties... (Score:4, Informative)
22 deaths reported so far, but it is still very early to tell. Still, since it happened during daytime, and in a region that is a bit less sparsely populated (http://www.chizuyainoue.jp/j_population/pop_density/1.pdf) than average, the fatalities will probably not be as high as the Awaji/Kobe earthquake of 1995 (when over 6000 people died, most of them in fires).
But it was a rather scary affair - I was in Tokyo, in the street, and having trouble keeping my balance. Can't imagine what it felt like in a high rise, or closer to the epicenter.
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the Kobe earthquake didn't generate a tsunami. Christ, I think I saw 22 people get killed in just the videos they're showing on CNN. Nothing graphic, just cars frantically trying to turn around as the tsunami wave bears down on them. I'd be surprised if the final death toll wasn't in the thousands+.
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I'd suggest avoiding being drunk this weekend.
You're going to need your wits about you, whether to escape or whether to help. Although, as I type this, I realize you may not have power to run your computer and read this.
Be careful.
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It's not exactly a coincidence or a lack of give-a-damn on our part. You don't plan for things that don't happen. If the continental U.S. lay on a major subduction zone, we'd be better prepared for this. Maybe not as prepared as the Japanese...
Re:Casualties... (Score:4, Insightful)
We're actually pretty good at emergency response to things like hurricanes. Where we fail is at solving vast existential problems with no quick fix solution. Like "a major city is 20 feet below sea level".
The Katrina disaster occured decades before the levees failed.
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Based on what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, I think you would stand to lose a State.
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There were a number of aftershocks felt in Tokyo, not as bad as the first one, but still strong. I stopped counting at the 5th, and the last one was just minutes ago. After the Awaji earthquake in Kobe 15 years ago there were rather strong aftershocks for 6 or 7 months after the earthquake.
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"This is a computer-generated message -- this event has not yet been reviewed by a seismologist."
Why is everyone blindly trusting the USGS computer? JMA is still asserting a 7.9.
No they aren't. JMA upgraded their estimate to 8.8 about an hour ago.
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For any quake that would measure over 3.5 on the Richter scale, the USGS uses the Moment Magnitude Scale [wikipedia.org] instead. The 8.8 (well, 8.9) refers to the latter scale.
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Correction - no leak, and the fire is not in the reactor building:
http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectioncode=132&storyCode=2059127 [neimagazine.com]
See also http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/ [jaif.or.jp] for updates.