Japan earthquake and tsunami! - Page 3

I'm left just speechless watching that video and reading personal acounts of the extent of the destruction.  It is event like these that really makes one to appreciate life,  family, friends and to not take so much for granted.  We can complain about so much yet it all seems so trivial when you see events like this happen.  I tell ya make sure to tell your loved ones how much you really appreciate them, let 'em know how much they mean to you and give 'em a BIG hug.

We woke up this morning to the news with video that the towns and cities around Sendai on the coast have basically been flattened. The only buildings left standing are hospitals and schools, which were made of re-enforced concrete.  Sendai itself was shaken badly, then hit by the tsunami hard, then much of what was left burned to the ground.  300 bodies washed up on the shore and the dead + missing count is at 1100+. They are also desperately trying to keep a nuclear reactor cool after a power black-out where the backup generator failed after an hour.

Wow, the pictures coming in are just wrenching. Reminds me of the 1964 Alaska Earthquake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake) in sheer destruction. But there are a lot more people in Japan than Alaska.

Weird thing is that I was standing on the San Andreas Faultline the other day, marveling at it. I had pulled off the highway outside Niland, California to see the mudpots. Hot gases come up out of the faultline and the mud bubbles up into a series of mini volcanoes. They bubble, slurp, hiss, and make all sorts of odd sounds. Otherworldly. I wondered when the next earthquake would come along.

My prayers go out to those affected.

2012 is coming!!! :P On a serious note, the news reporter said that this earthquake is about 700 times stronger than haiti and about 1000 times powerful than the NZ earthquake :0

This is so sad. Japan's a great country filled with wonderful people.
 

 

8.8 vs 6.3ish means it was significantly more than 1000 times more powerful - closer to 10000 than 1000.

Edited by jjinh - 3/11/11 at 8:31pm

Off by a factor of 10 just about. 160x the NZ quake, unless he meant at the epicentre. 

The thing is you can't really measure the destructive power of an earthquake simply from the magnitude. Our 6.3 seems relatively minor considering we had a 7.1 earlier in September which didn't do anywhere near as much damage. The difference is where it was centered (causing it to ripple through the soil underneath the city centre and amplifying the effects) and the extreme shallowness. Apparently it generated 2g's of energy, more like a 9 than a 6.3. So comparisons based on magnitude don't really tell the full story.

we had an earthquake a few weeks ago but i think it was only a 3 on the richter scale. we do get earthquakes on the west coast of canada but they are usually minor. also keep in mind i about 300km inland from the ocean.

 

but they have been predicting a really big one soon. perhaps now or soon is the date in question.

Saw that video, just shocking to see the power of a big Tsunami. That one small city was almost leveled.

It could of been much much worse, so always have to be thankful. got shaken up badly here in katsushika but alive nonetheless, i keep hearing they want to upgrade it to 9.1 by the way.

 

@fraseyboy yes depth also plays a role

 

 

  with that many buildings standing, it pretty much is leveled.

Edited by Keiko - 3/11/11 at 9:29pm

A lot of thanks goes to the wonderful engineering and building codes in Japan. That saved millions of lives.

japan is a very seismically active region I'm pretty sure they prepared slightly in case of something like this. it helped keep the death toll for the most part down.

That nuclear power plant...I hope they don't have a meltdown.