I don’t think I’ve ever heard of one that high on the scale. If this happened near Tokyo the city would have been flattened.
I can’t believe the US is not sending in disaster relief helicopters. The GOP must have blocked this measure, just like GW Bush weather doom machines caused Katrina.
WTF are you on? Hundreds are dead and you make stupid partisan joke. I get it, you are a hardcore Republican.
Never in my life I read about 8.9 magnitude earthquake! Catastrophic destruction! The world has started to panic as it’s slowly hitting hawaii and might hit other close regions.
2004 Tsunami was said to be between a 9.1-9.3 which is a lot larger than an 8.9 because they are orders of magnitude greater (i believe someting like 2-4 times greater).
I briefly read somewhere that this was one of the top 10 most powerful recorded earthquakes, and probably the strongest near Japan in a few hundred years.
Yep, cnn said strongest in Japan in 100 years. King Kong has nothing on it.
Yep, cnn said strongest in Japan in 100 years. King Kong has nothing on it.
Yep, cnn said strongest in Japan in 100 years. King Kong has nothing on it.
hopefully the damaged nuclear plant doesn’t get worse . . .
Yep, cnn said strongest in Japan in 100 years. Godzilla has nothing on it.
Hope Japan’s reactor is not going Chernobyl. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii …
I guess that means Kadafi and Sheen will be knocked off page 1 for the next few days.
this couldve been much much much much worse had the epicenter been say about 100 km due south. Still a huge tragedy nevertheless.
I was curious how much time people in the coastal areas had between the earthquake and the tsunami. This wasn’t well reported in some of the major news organizations. Finally I did what I should have done from the start and went to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunami According to that, the tsunami came ashore in some places as early as 26 minutes after the earthquake. Read something in the Times about how a woman with two young kids was supposed to meet her father-in-law at an evacuation center but she never made it. She’d stopped by her house to pick up some milk (for the kids, I suppose) and she and the kids were killed. Sigh.
Is an earthquake felt almost instantaneously? Like with this one, if you were 300-400 miles away would you have felt the quake seconds after it happened or is there a slight delay? I read an article stating that the tsunami caused by this earthquake could have been traveling 600mph, almost the speed of sound, below the surface of the ocean.
Chuckrox8 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Is an earthquake felt almost instantaneously? > Like with this one, if you were 300-400 miles away > would you have felt the quake seconds after it > happened or is there a slight delay? > > I read an article stating that the tsunami caused > by this earthquake could have been > traveling 600mph, almost the speed of sound, below > the surface of the ocean. I forget exactly, but yes the quake travels very quickly. I remember from 7th grade geology that the P-waves come first. P-waves can travel through anything (including liquids) and are extremely fast. Next comes the S-waves which move the ground like in a side-to-side or S pattern; these are the waves that cause the most damage. I want to say they come 10-15seconds after the P-waves. S-waves cannot travel through liquids. I also recall the L-waves, which move up and down and are also very destructive. Don’t think they are caused by every quake though. Bah I’ll have to look this up later.
I live in central Tokyo. Most of the damage done this time is caused by tsunami, not earthquake so Tokyo area is suprisingly calm except for the side-effect of the rolling blackout. Nevertheless, it really is unnerving to watch how the nuke reactor will be put under control. Also it is such a huge heartache to watch TV live coverage reporting those who evacuated from the scene and their search for dead bodies. Now is the time the Japanese should resolve their resilience and carry out the spirit of mutual assistance. I would like to extend my sincerest condolence to those who have suffered from the brutal disaster.
watching abc world news last night, what jumped out at me most was how calm and collected everyone was. they sat around campfires, waited patiently in lines, and worked together to make the best of the situation. i’ve never seen another disaster of that magnitude where the people were so calm and organized afterwards.
frisian Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I was curious how much time people in the coastal > areas had between the earthquake and the tsunami. BBC reported 14 minutes between quake & tsunami. No time at all really. The warning took at least 3 minutes to be sounded from what I saw. I think they said wave speeds were 600 miles an hour. Unimaginable really. Condolences.