My son is on his honeymoon on Kauai. They have been evacuated from their beachfront hotel to a place 2.5 miles from the beach. There is not much altitude on the island, but as I read the "inundation maps" they are well away from danger zones.
Oy.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapc...pt=T1&iref=BN1
I'm not sure whose seen the footage from Northern Honshu, but it's like something from a Sci-Fi movie. The water sweeping across the farmland, the series of perfectly huge tidal waves stretching to infinite, burning debris being swept inland...it's unbelievable.
CNN just said 17 people are confirmed killed. I can't imagine that number will hold, but all we can do is hope. It looks horrible and has caused widespread Tsunami warnings all across the Pacific, including the West Coast of the US, Alaska, and Hawaii.
My television also tells me it's the 7th largest earthquake in recorded history. 8.9 - WOW.
Start up the prayers, people. Japan got hit HARD. Hopefully it looks worse than it is!
Maybe these Supermoon people are on to something?
My son is on his honeymoon on Kauai. They have been evacuated from their beachfront hotel to a place 2.5 miles from the beach. There is not much altitude on the island, but as I read the "inundation maps" they are well away from danger zones.
Oy.
Despite very comprehensive Japanese preparations for a MAJOR earthquake (followed by a tsunami), an 8.9 is almost unbelievable (I lived in the Aleutians for some time, 40+ years ago, we had large earthquakes frequently, but they never exceeded 7.5 or 8.0 -- remembering that this scale is logarithmically-based, therefore each 1.0 added doubles the force of the earthquake). My prayers are with people throughout the Pacific region, and especially in Japan. This could be catastrophic in so many ways, and in areas that are separated by thousands of miles.
The Richter scale is base 10 logarithmic, not base e, so an 8.9 magnitude is 10 times stronger than a 7.9 quake. So this quake was absolutely huge. It had a dozen or so aftershocks that were stronger than the earthquake that devastated Christchurch not long ago.
Have some friends in the Tokyo area who are all fine, but were quite shaken up, larger than anything they'd felt before and they weren't too close to the epicenter.
Honeymooners are back in their room on Kauai, and all seems well at their oceanfront hotel. They will have a good story to tell their grandchildren about the wedding trip!
Some amazing, horrifying pictures from The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2...-japan/100022/
JBDuke
Andre Dawkins: “People ask me if I can still shoot, and I ask them if they can still breathe. That’s kind of the same thing.”
Looks like a bunch of children's toys on the ground... but its not.
-Jason "stunning images" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
Unless this is a roundabout reference to the potential nuclear plant problem, how could the writer forget (ignore?):Basketball is a wonderful thing, but real life always stakes a claim. Given everything that’s happened in Japan, and it looks to be getting worse, perhaps a level of disaster we haven’t known in decades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_In...ke_and_tsunami
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...fukushima-core
Here are some educational details on the Fukushima nukes.
The last 50 workers at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Plant have evacuated. The situation is worsening. I am concerned about my brother and lots of friends in Yokosuka:
http://www.cnic.navy.mil/yokosuka/
At approximately 0700 local (Japan) time, 15 March 2011, sensitive instrumentation on USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN 73) pier-side in Yokosuka, detected low levels of radioactivity from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant. While there is no danger to the public, Commander, Naval Forces Japan is recommending limited precautionary measures for personnel on Fleet Activities Yokosuka and Naval Air Facility Atsugi, including: A. Limiting outdoor activities. B. Securing external ventilation systems as much as practical. These measures are strictly precautionary in nature. We do not expect that any United States Federal radiation exposure limits will be exceeded even if no precautionary measures are taken. We are continuing to analyze the situation and will update you as we learn more.
Bob Green
Looks like reports of an evac were incorrect and the result of mistranslation.