Japan earthquake and tsunami!

Woah, that is one huge tsunami.   Hope enough people get to safety. 

 

Any Japanese Head-Fiers here feel the quake?  How far did the earthquake reach?

i hope everyone is ok and that they make it to high ground.

There is a tsunami warning for the entire Pacific until 8am Eastern US time (5am West coast). Brace yourselves, Hawaiians.

Been watching a stream of the NHK news station about this. Good god it looks like something straight out of a movie, like the aftermath of some sort of huge battle, it's terrible. Everything was just submerged underwater.

Edit: Actually it sounds like i'm blowing things out of proportion, but I have no other words for this.
Edited by Hente - 3/11/11 at 12:34am

Yes, the state of Hawaii is now under a tsunami warning. As of 10 p.m. Hawaii Standard Time (half hour ago), Honolulu Civil Defense has sounded it's warning sirens and upgraded the tsunami watch to a tsunami warning for the Hawaiian islands.Tsunami warning buoys has sent readings to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach Honolulu Hawaii that the sea level in the Pacific has risen two to three feet with the surge heading towards the Hawaiian islands.

 

If the buoy readings hold true, Kauai will see the first wave at about 3 a.m. Friday morning which is about 5 hrs from now. The rest of the Hawaiian islands will see the waves a few minutes after Kauai. The stores and gas station here in Honolulu have been jammed packed with people stocking on supplies and filling their cars with gas. Has been like this for the past three and a half hours.

 

It was about nearly a year ago (Feb. 27, 2010) that the Hawaiian Islands was also under a tsunami warning when Chile had a massive earth quake. On that day the sirens sounded at 5 a.m. and it was wait and see nearly the entire day to see if there would be any large waves.

 

I hope nothing comes out of this warning tonight, but like last year we'll just have to wait and see. Now I better get prepared for the worst. So any other Head-Fier's from the Hawaiian Islands that live in the tsunami inundation zones, be prepared to leave and head for higher grounds. Pray and hope for the best as we wait and see.

Edited by warubozu - 3/11/11 at 1:34am

well we have tsunami evacuation warning here on Guam. first waves are expected in about 40 mins....

live near the beach so hopefully it wont be a big one or just miss us all together...

 

My deepest thoughts go out to you man.
 

 

thanks. 

looks like we were spared. everything seems to be OK here. Hopefully Hawaii and other islands will be the same.
 

 

I saw a stream of twitter messages just as I was heading out the door. When I went into a local hi-fi store a short while later, this was what was on their home theatre demo screen, with everyone in the shop watching:

 

 

That's basically the countryside around Sendai being washed away, towns and all.

 

I'm in Fukuoka, which is unaffected, but Tokyo is in chaos, with all the trains stopped and 4 million people without power. Half the coastline has the GTFO-NOW-FAST tsunami warning in force and even the TV news announcers have helmets on due to the risk of aftershocks. A nuclear emergency has also been declared as the cooling systems in one reactor have failed to activate as they should.

 

More videos here:

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/infographics/storify.htm?id=japan-earthquake-and-tsunami

I don't think there's ever been aerial footage of a tsunami like this before... I certainly haven't seen any and my preconceptions of tsunamis were based on the stories of survivors I'd heard on TV. The reality is far more terrifying than anything I could have imagined. 

 

Japan is a beautiful beautiful country full of amazing people and it is sad to see what is happening to it. Let us hope the death toll isn't as high as predicted. This certainly puts our earthquake into perspective...

The crazy thing is how the tsunami hit like 15 minutes after the quake so they were broadcasting deaths in real time.

 

Fuji TV showed that the Ginza line was reopening and Tokyo is more under control though the government is still urging people to stay where they are and not to go home.  I already skyped with the in-laws and friends about it and everyone is okay but it really caught them off guard.

 

Though boards are like 2ch are doing their normal matsuri about the whole thing.  I hope this doesn't get too much worse and that the tsunami warnings pass without event.

First time I've seen a 7 (the highest on the Japanese earthquake scale).  The last major quake was a 5 west of the one today, and that did horrendous damage.  Tokyo is in that area of 4's south of the 7. I've seen at least one declaration that it is the biggest in Japan's recorded history. Lucky it wasn't inland, though the tsunami negated any benefit of that.

 

My prayers for all those affected.

 

My God..it is a devastating one.