7.9 and 8.8 Earthquakes in Japan

@ deej - that's shocking footage, the cars racing against it on the highway - they seem to have gotten away :)

also, I KNOW al Jazeera is awesome but this coverage is really, truly blowing USA away

6.1 and 6.3 aftershocks a little closer to Tokyo.

some different video
http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/

Can't wait to find out who Pat Robertson blames this on.

14 structures reported on fire in Tokyo due to earthquake.

According to FB friends, the U.S. NWS is issuing tsunami watches for the Oregon & Washington State coasts, with the wave expected to hit in about 7.5 hours

Nick Momus reports only a 'slight lurch' in Osaka.

godzilla is such an asshole

complimentary map:

http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/2011/03/11/lhvpd9/01/ttvulhvpd9-01.jpg

to quote dr samuel beckett: "oh....boy"

i just heard they're evacuating tokyo??

in case anyone is wondering, grady is not in hawaii

unless they grounded flights w/in the past few hours

he must have meant buildings in tokyo

My coworkers in Tokyo are being sent home early (which is a really big deal!). No real damage there, most of the damage you see is in low-lying reclaimed land on the coast of Miyagi near Sendai.

this footage of the waves wiping out towns is so brutal

oil refinery fire is looking more and more terrifying

I'm DJing a birthday party and watching al jazeera on my iPhone. This is really conflicting.

many xposts thanks AA for reassurance abt Australia/tsunami... stuff like this just wigs me right out

I'm in Tokyo, I don't think they're evacuating the city. At least I hope not...

if that wave keeps going it's our turn in 10 hours

hang tight lj

They can't evacuate Tokyo, it's far too big, where would everyone go?

^^^was actually going to post that sentiment

Haha guess I should have flown out of Hawaii today instead of tomorrow

:/

I've seen the footage of that initial debris wave twenty times now and it still blows my mind every single time.

Just saw it. Unbelievable.

Whoohoo sirens

Not going to hit here until 3 am, but I think they are trying to get peeps to go look at the news

np veg (keep ignoring those warnings, I'm getting consistent information here from two major sources that aus is safe)

<3

Secondary Al Jazeera stream

http://www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish

gahhh awful. already heard from my japanese colleagues and they are all fine thank god

Hawaii's coast is being evacuted??

No it isn't. I say that as a dude currently 30 yards from the coast on Maui.

So apparently this is the 7th most powerful quake in recorded history, and the only one of the 7 to strike near a populated area.

That can't be good.

The Isle of Man is forecasted to have 10" waves hitting her coasts shortly. Good luck Angland.

We're being told some low-lying areas of Hawaii are being evacuated, but I don't know enough about Hawaiian geography/topology to make any sort of call on that.

fuckkkk not the kind of thing you ever want to wake up to. footage is unbelievable/awful - floating fires in residential areas, horror as you see cars getting swept away live

So apparently this is the 7th most powerful quake in recorded history, and the only one of the 7 to strike near a populated area.

That can't be good.

― Johnny Fever, Friday, March 11, 2011 3:46 AM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark

the chile earthquake from last yr?

I'm just going by what the guy on Al Jazeera is saying.

sometimes footage looks not so bad until you catch sight of a house or something and suddenly realise the scale. awful.

6 deaths being reported (not counting the 2 deaths from the earthquake 2 days ago).

Hawaii local news also reporting this is larger than the chile one fyi

Chile was 8.8 it seems, and this is 8.9.

That might not seem like a big difference, but it is.

Each 0.1 escalation is x100 right?

tsunami watch for washington and oregon coasts

LA Times says it's the world's fifth largest since 1900, according to USGS

Watching the Busena Terrace webcam (north shore of Okinawa) to get a sense of how large the tsunami will be across the Pacific. ETA in 12 minutes.