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Big quake in Tokyo


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I have many friends in Japan from college and thankfully they are all ok, one of my best friends Hiroko, she lives in Saitama, she and her family are ok but they are dealing with aftershocks. They were the first people I thought of, I was up all night worried on Facebook trying to obtain details. Electricity has returned to their home and surrounding areas although she and her sister have to sleep under the dining room table for now :( My friend Yuichiro is ok in Hokkaido though he too is dealing with after shocks. Another friend of mine is stuck at her university overnight. What scares me most, is I hope people with disabilities are safe, particularly cognitively challenged and people who need immense physical help. My heart and prayers are with everyone in Japan.

Edited by CJ Shearn
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Brown pants.

Both Hisako and I were well and truly shook up by the biggest quake I've ever experienced.

All the plants fell over, stuff fell off shelves and we made mad grabs for the tv and pc screens.

There've been two large aftershocks.

Well freaked.

Very scary, definitely the worst I have ever experienced. At work and hope there is not too much damage in my apartment.

Glad you're both alright. Truly scary footage coming out of Japan. Hope the death toll is low. God, this is horrible.

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Best wishes to everyone in Japan. The magnitude and scope of this quake is brought home to me by the fact that the nearby town of Santa Cruz, CA has had it's harbor seriously damaged by a series of tsunami surges occurring some ten hours post-quake. The damage was even more serious in Crescent City, CA, up near the Oregon border, where the harbor was ravaged, and one person is reported missing after being swept out to sea. Only footnote stories compared to the severe devastation in Japan, but a very rare and newsworthy event locally, and something to learn from in terms of understanding the power of tsunamis around the Pacific rim.

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We spent a troubled night with aftershocks coming every thirty minutes or so. I finally dropped off but Hisako was too wound up to sleep at all.She packed a bag with food, water, passports etc that sat by the front door all night. A lot of the Tokyo trains and subways are running again but the phone system is still haywire. The damage in Iwate and Fukushima is quite horrendous. A good friend's son works up in Sendai which has been badly hit and we've been unable to make contact. Every tv channel is running non stop coverage and minute by minute updates. Thankfully there hasn't been an aftershock for the last hour, I hope they've finished.

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Gee, it looks worse and worse!

Hope there won't be a big nuclear accident!

Listening to NPR off and on all day, and it sounds likes the consensus is that this was a quake of nearly unprecedented size (at least quakes near Japan). The last one as big in that region may have been around 976 AD, according to this scan of NY Times article from Aug 5th, 1881 - I can't believe I'm linking to an article from 1881 for an event that's relevant to today.

The question then, of course -- from an engineering and emergency planning perspective -- is how do you prepare and build things to withstand a "1,000 year" event??

Sending thoughts and prayers, as events unfold -- especially that nuclear situation, which sounds far from over (and may be actually getting more dangerous. :unsure: )

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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Last time I looked at the TV before this evening was early this morning, not a lot of video then and reports were, I guess, very preliminary...had no idea then of the scope or scale of how intense this whole thing has been...best wishes to all affected, for real.

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My roommate from college lives in Fukushima. He and his wife are OK, but I worry about the nuclear reactor. They're outside the 3 kilometer evacuation zone, but still.

The tsunami after-effects have already hit parts of the Southern Oregon coast. I don't know if it's made it this far north, but I would suspect so.

My wife was just doing earthquake training for her 2nd grade class. I've only ever experienced one earthquake, and it was a minor one (3-something).

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Tokyo seems to have got off fairly lightly. Apart from some minor damage things are more or less back to normal. Before we all have had chance to breathe a collective sigh of relief we have been hit with the news of a meltdown in progress at the #1 nuclear reactor in Fukushima.Tv footage shows a plume of smoke rising from the reactor building.

As if that weren't dreadful enough we are getting alarming reports of overheating from several other reactors. This is all apart from the tsunami devasation along the north east coast. Just been watching some footage of a passenger train, cars buckled and bent laying among a few cars and trucks in the middle of a field somewhere. God knows what happened to the passengers. Rescue work has started, been watching footage of a hospital evacuation. The patients are being winched up to helicopters one by one. The hospital buildings are half submerged and the surrounding land is under deep water. There are also a lot of fires burning out of control. This is going to be a real test of the countries metal.

The tv channels are still all in emergency mode with no normal programmes to relieve the stress.

Just in - Apparently there has just been an explosion at the #1 plant with some staff injured.

Edited by kinuta
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CNN is reporting that the Japanese government is saying the explosions destroyed the buildings surrounding the reactors but not the reactors themselves or the structures they are contained in.

Talking heads are saying 12 - 18 months just for immediate recovery, which I assume means, basically, cleanup.

Dislocation of local populations in areas most affected will cause all kinds of problems. Think New Orleans times X. Some areas will likely have to be abandoned altogether.

Glad to hear Tokyo and areas to the south are largely OK, but the reports and footage from the areas affected most are unbelievable.

Side note: My ex-wife, who was raised in Tokyo, has contacted her family there and they are all OK. Her brother has now lived through 9/11, where he was talking on the phone from his midtown office to a colleague in one of the twin towers when a plane hit, and the phone went dead. And now this. He walked for four hours yesterday from his workplace to his home.

Edited by papsrus
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CNN is reporting that the Japanese government is saying the explosions destroyed the buildings surrounding the reactors but not the reactors themselves or the structures they are contained in.

FWIW, Japanese authorities and this guy both suggest that, bad as things are, we're not likely to experience another Chernobyl. :shrug[1]:http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-tech-nuclear-expert-869322.html

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CNN is reporting that the Japanese government is saying the explosions destroyed the buildings surrounding the reactors but not the reactors themselves or the structures they are contained in.

FWIW, Japanese authorities and this guy both suggest that, bad as things are, we're not likely to experience another Chernobyl. :shrug[1]:http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-tech-nuclear-expert-869322.html

I love how reassuring he is and then adds the caveat that details are "sketchy." Being on the west coast I just thought I'd try to get a gander on what reasonably could happen. With access being what it is nowadays finding "reasonable" could take awhile. :blink:

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Rescuers scramble as Japan tries to cool reactor

Rather worrisome passage here:

Japanese officials say they will use seawater to cool off a nuclear reactor that was damaged by Friday's earthquake and tsunami. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports the step represents a last-ditch effort to protect the reactor's radioactive core.

The article also mentions that four whole trains have disappeared. Even with our relatively recent Katrina experience, it's hard to fathom just how devastating and destructive this much-more-encompassing and speedily-engulfing tsunami was.

Edited by ghost of miles
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