Massive earthquake in Japan-tsunami warning

[Tigger]

Shocks keep coming

Jesse's Café Américain: A Message Received From a Friend In Japan

Latest Earthquakes in the World - Past 7 days

[GregLee]

I'm seeing good HD coverage (some in English and some with English subtitles) on the NHK World network, being carried over the local PBS station KHET in Hawaii. There is a series of evacuation advisories for expected additional tsunamis and some news of the problem nuclear reactor in Fukushima prefecture, which may leak some minimal radioactive material into the atmosphere, authorities say.

[MichaelB]

Aftershocks but also a new earthquake in central Japan (6.6).

[Avalon]

Here's a series of good still photos.

Powerful aftershocks shake Tokyo

[rescueme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khan 8.9 ? Wasn't sure that was possible.

There's a 9.5 on the top of the list:

Historic World Earthquakes

[Tigger]

YouTube - Japanese Earthquake Tsunami Wave hits Emeryville

Thankfully the wave had become much smaller by the time it reached the US, but it's incredible that it has traveled so far!

[RetiredGypsy]

Got a phone call from AT&T at 0400 this morning with a tsunami warning. Apparently some property was damaged along the coast in parts of California, but I'm a little too far inland to have seen anything.

Any word on donations starting from any rescue and help organizations yet for Japan?

[omni550]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RetiredGypsy Any word on donations starting from any rescue and help organizations yet for Japan?

I was listening to a Windsor, Canada (across the river from Detroit) radio station this afternoon. The Canadian Red Cross is asking for financial donations only at the moment. They are awaiting word from the Japanese Red Cross to get details on anything else that might be needed.

omni

[TromboneAl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tigger Tsunami arrives in Calif., knocks boats loose - San Jose Mercury News

In that article "The Coast Guard searched for a man Friday who was swept out to sea by powerful waves generated by the tsunami in Northern California while taking photos near the mouth of the Klamath River in Del Norte County."

Sorry to be skeptical, but I'll bet the man was just caught by a plain vanilla big wave while taking pictures. That beach is 40 miles north of here, and I just looked at our beach, and just above the normal wave slope, there are footprints that were there yesterday. Here are the waves we've had recently (Crescent City buoy). That peak in height is coincidental, we see peaks like that all the time.

waves.jpg

But apparently Crescent City's tiny harbor got a significant surge.

Also from the article:

Darren Lee, a photographer who surfs daily in Santa Cruz, carried his board down the narrow staircase at Cypress Point about 10 minutes before the tsunami was due and paddled out to his regular spot.



Immediately he could tell something was different.



"It was a low tide but it felt like a medium tide. It was real bouncy. There was a lot of current," Lee said.
After surfing for about a half-hour, he decided to come back in. Tsunamis, it seems, aren't conducive to good surf.



"It was really inconsistent," he said, "and I was like, OK, it's like this because there's a tsunami. Now I've been there."

I'm not buying it -- typical placebo effect.

[RetiredGypsy]

Quote:

Update 6: Worse news from the Fukushima plant-the facility has experienced a "station blackout," meaning all cooling mechanisms have halted. This is "one of the most serious conditions that can affect a nuclear plant," says the Union of Concerned Scientists. And if cooling dies completely? A meltdown shortly thereafter. Japanese nuclear experts are scrambling to maintain the flow of coolant through portable generators-let's hope it works.

Japan Declares Nuclear Emergency as Nuclear Plants Cooling Functions Fail (Updated)

[Brat]

I see that they have a 2nd plant in jeopardy.

The industry is in deep do-do, can't blame this on the green-beanies.

TromboneAl, the harbor at Gold Beach (north of Crescent City) also got hit hard, at last report there are a couple people missing.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khan 8.9 ? Wasn't sure that was possible.

That's a biggie. And remember that the Richter scale is logarithmic - a 9.0 is ten times more powerful than an 8.0, one-hundred times more powerful than a 7.0, and so on.

I don't have the link handy, but I read earlier today that this shift in the plates affects the entire globe (ahh, here is the link):

What unleashed Japan's massive 8.9 earthquake? - CSMonitor.com

Quote:

When quakes like this occur, they have a global impact on the planet, adds Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Based on initial estimates of the magnitude and location of Wednesday's quake, he calculates that the Earth's rotation slowed by about 1.6 millionths of a second, and the axis around which the planet's mass is distributed – some 33 feet away from the planet's spin axis – shifted by some 6 inches.

So I guess we all moved 6 inches today? Do I need to reset my atomic clock?

-ERD50

[clifp]

So I have question for you nuclear engineers. How much radioactive material is contained in nuclear power plants.

Best case this sets back nuclear energy in the US by 5 years... a lot more is likely.

[bssc]

Heard from family in Tokyo that all is well and power is back on, so some normalcy is being restored.

[Tigger]

BBC News - Huge blast at Japan nuclear power plant

Live updates:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

[antmary]

A catastrophe - the quake and tsunami. But, if there is a nuclear meltdown, how does one cope? I have a hunch that the Japanese powers that be are downplaying events in order to deal with panic of the citizens.

At first, I was stunned. But, the antidote to fear is action, and we went ahead and sent in a donation to the International Red Cross.

[obgyn65]

Keep safe Rambler. Thanks for checking in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rambler Checking in from Tokyo.

[TromboneAl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by antmary A catastrophe - the quake and tsunami. But, if there is a nuclear meltdown, how does one cope? I have a hunch that the Japanese powers that be are downplaying events in order to deal with panic of the citizens.

One of the experts on TV said that he thought a meltdown was unlikely.

[missionfinder]

Reports have come out suggesting a partial meltdown in at least one reactor.

[BigNick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by missionfinder Reports have come out suggesting a partial meltdown in at least one reactor.

A contact in the UK whom I trust reports that they are working on the basis of a "4 out of 7" event, on a scale where Three Mile Island was a 5 and Chernobyl a 7.