Friday, March 11, 2011

Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan

Some of you might be curious or concerned what's going on after the huge earthquake in Japan.

If you're worried about someone, Google People Finder Japan is helping people track down the missing ones they love: if you're worried about someone, you can post a note, and people who have been disconnected from the people they love can leave a note there saying they're OK.

Here in Korea, we're OK.  Japan's mainland blocked us from the tsunami, and even if it didn't, Seoul, where I live, is far, far from the east coast, where such a tsunami would hit.

BBC's coverage has been awesome so far.  Go here for to the second updates on the feed, and video as they have it.

You can also follow http://twitter.com/BBCBreaking, BBC's breaking news twitter feed.

This website includes updates, along with info about shelters.

And if you live in Japan, don't forget to leave a note on your Facebook wall, and send a note to the people closest to you, so that they know you're OK.

This is the video clip that blew my mind: look how fast the water sweeps across the farmland.

And in about an hour, the tsunami reaches Hawaii.

Prayers, if you pray, are in order.  And hope that Hawaii's building codes and engineering hold up as admirably as Japan's have.


When I went to the Maldives with Wifeoseyo for our honeymoon, our tourguide in Male (the capital of the maldives), told us that a handful of islands vanished completely because of the 2007 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.  I hope the folks in the South Pacific and Hawaii are OK.

6 comments:

Pike riddle said...

Seismic activity is the result of a solar flare on 13-15 February 2011.
The largest number of thermographs (Portable Thermal Imaging Cameras), to search for people under the rubble by fixing heat of the human body, have the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Мost of these cameras mounted on military equipment. Some quantity of IR cameras have their manufacturers in warehouses.
Dubai can help to Japan more than any other. because in Dubai is concentrated 20% of construction equipment (mostly cranes) that may needed to clearing concrete rubble.
Аdequate logistics for the delivery of this equipment has the U.S. Army and the operating companies of largest aircrafts An-124.

A Deal Or No Deal said...

Watching a disaster in Japan overwhelm otherwise a stable and developed city robbed me a little bit of my delusion that there could never be a war, even a small-scale skirmish, in South Korea because it's too rich.

Unknown said...

The tsunami caused lots of damage to the harbors of Northern California but only one death (that is known). Nor. Cal. got it much worse than Hawaii even.

The Sanity Inspector said...

I don't speak Japanese, but with the help of google's translation widget, I've been able to find a number of amateur cellphone videos of the disaster. I invite you to click over to my place and have a look.

kushibo said...

Tamar1973 wrote:
Nor. Cal. got it much worse than Hawaii even.

Hawaii got smacked around and there was a lot of damage for a six- to eight-foot tsunami. Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island all sustained major damage to homes, docks, and boats in some places.

From the sound of this article, it sounds like NoCal got hit with comparable damage. They're saying $20 million at least; I don't know how much it will be in Hawaii, but it's at least in the millions of dollars.

The guy who died in Crescent City shouldn't have been doing what he was doing. It's a tragedy, to be sure, but rule #1 of a tsunami is that you don't go to the beach to watch it.

Nearby here in Waikiki, one man almost because a statistic when he was overwhelmed by an errant swell, some ten hours after the first tsunami wave hit.

It was eerie listening to those tsunami sirens blaring every hour until the waves hit in the middle of the night. I'm just glad they took it seriously, or else there might have been dozens of deaths here. The last tsunami warning, after the Chile earthquake, turned out to mostly be a non-event.

Anyway, once our distraction was over, it's back to thinking about — and praying for — the victims in Japan. So sad.

Anonymous said...

Wind is blowing westerly from Japan.

Just sayin'.

Best link I've found for donations:

http://www.salon.com/news/earthquakes/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/03/13/japan_earthquake_tsunami_relief_efforts