next »

[FK in the Coffee]

It's amazing what good engineering and earthquake preparedness can do.  This earthquake is ~100x larger than the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the death toll is probably going to be ~1/1000 of Haiti.
Still, the floods look insane.

Imagine if it hit a third-world country.  Japan's lucky that it had to sort of tight building codes for an earthquake like this.  The tsunamis were completely devastating, though, and I'm going to try and do anything I can to help out with the recovery effort.

[meweel]

Yeah, the Japanese are already used to these conditions and their buildings are well constructed no major damage, this alone saved many lives i guess

[Destral]

From what my friends over there have told me the major concern now is fires, broken gas mains, etc.

Apparently there's also been some major phone network outages, but the internet has stayed up.

[Movius]

2010 and 2011 are just earthquake-filled, aren't they? From Haiti, Chile, China, and even Turkey to Japan.

Just like every other year.

[Cthulhu32]

My brother lives in Hirai, Tokyo and he said it was pretty freaky. He's fine, his girlfriend was working but she made it home okay. Basically all the rail-stations stopped and traffic is completely blocked, so he said it looked like a festival outside with all the people walking 2-3 hours home. It sounds like the tsunamis are the biggest problem right now, because they'll basically grab cars on the road and drag them out to sea. Cell phones are out right now in Tokyo, but everyone has the internet.

[Theophilus]

It's in the aztec calendar

Your mom's in the aztec calendar...

-

I hope fellow TIGers living in Japan are alright.

Makes me feel blessed to live in a state with very fair weather.

[[RM8]]

Holy crap this is awful    Apparently my family in Tokyo is okay.

[Renton]

I heard about trouble in the Fukushima nuclear power plant because of the earthquake. Anyone got news on that?

[kumacmon]

Most of my friends from Tokyo and south of there say that they're handling it pretty well minus the cell network / train problems. The videos of the damage up north are pretty scary though.

[Hangedman]

One of the three active reactors of the six present may be damaged. No fear of a meltdown at the moment, but it definitely needs work soon.

[supershigi]

I got all these texts this morning from family and friends telling us we were in a tsunami evacuation zone... we checked the tsunami warnings and were like, okay it's probably not going to be a big deal but I suppose we should drive inland just in case.  So we got our cat and drove to inland, but then the radio said waves were only 1-4 feet so we came back.  But unfortunately we still haven't been able to reach our family in Japan... my grandmother doesn't use internet or anything (she's in her late 90s) and she's right in the Tokyo area, so we're kind of worried.

Yeah, the Japanese are already used to these conditions and their buildings are well constructed no major damage, this alone saved many lives i guess

Did you really mean to say there was no major damage?  Because buildings were literally being picked up and washed away by the dozens.  The Japanese are used to tsunamis and earthquakes, yes, but large parts of Japan have been absolutely wrecked by either this earthquake or the subsequent waves... That footage of the wave carrying flaming buildings and washing over the land picking up everything in its path... it was crazy.

I heard about trouble in the Fukushima nuclear power plant because of the earthquake. Anyone got news on that?

So far experts have been saying that there hasn't been leakage, but I think the problem now (or at least from the last time they were talking about it) is restoring power to the cooling system. 

[Hangedman]

As far as I have heard there's not much damage from the wave in the tokyo area. It's mostly just earthquake damage. The water mostly ripped up the higher up coast.

[superflat]

My wife's watching NHK and it looks like there was another big quake in Ibaraki where my in-laws live. The footage is terrifying.... This is a nightmare!

[supershigi]

Crap are you serious?  My uncle and aunt are in Ibaraki-ken... it's like countryside out there, maybe they aren't as prepared for that stuff... do you have a link?

[Ishi]

It's all pretty terrible, really hope everything is ok!

[superflat]

Right now another 6.6 one's just hit in the NE, with other 4-5's all over the place.  

Edit: here's the link http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk総合ミラー.

[Desert Dog]

Thinking of Japan. 

[Player 3]

Good lord, why do so many of you guys have so many relatives in Japan?

[Theophilus]

Google had a link to this person finder; may be good for those of you who are unable to reach relatives in japan.

http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/?small=no


EDIT: Oh, it is by google.

[supershigi]

@Player 3: Because I'm half Japanese and my Dad was the only one in his family to move to America.

@Theophilus: Oh, haha, I was about to post the same thing.  I'm curious to know if anyone has had any luck with the people finder.  I haven't been able to locate anyone (I tried both romaji and kanji spelling, neither worked for any of my relatives), so I'm guessing that the database just hasn't had a chance to really populate yet.