Posts Tagged ‘earthquake’

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Japan Earthquake/Tsunami Update for Saturday Morning, March 12, 2011

Saturday, March 12th, 2011

Some quick Sendai earthquake/tsunami updates:

  • Current death toll estimate is 1,700. By way of comparison, remember that the 2010 Haiti earthquake killed 316,000 and the 2004 Indonesian tsunami killed 230,210. First world infrastructure, building codes and warning systems matter a lot.
  • Stratfor is reporting that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant “appears” to have melted down. I have not seen confirmation of this elsewhere. Even if true, it does not mean there has been a core breach, much less a containment breach. And the Christian Science Monitor is saying otherwise.
  • Little electricity and no water in Sendai.
  • The Washington Post has a live update blog.

    • Up-close footage of the tsunami coming into the city I haven’t seen before:

    Close footage of the tsunami surge moving into a city:

    More close tsunami footage:

    More Sendai aftermath footage:

    Some cognitive dissonance in this Russia Today video: The footage is mainly the burning natural gas plant, while the voiceover discusses the nuclear plant failsafe issues:

    More burning natural gas footage, along with a discussion of other nation’s tsunami preparations:

    For other videos I’ve put up from the earthquake/tsunami, start here or just go scrolling back through the videos I’ve put up the last couple of days.

    Howard Waldrop and I have to review Battle: Los Angeles for Locus Online, so between that and my usual Saturday obligations, I’m not sure if I’ll have time to do too many more updates today.

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    And Still More Japan Earthquake/Tsunami Upadates

    Friday, March 11th, 2011

    My most recent post on the Japanese earthquake and tsunami is here.

    Some more news tidbits on the Sendai earthquake/tsunami.

  • Evidently the possibility of a nuclear meltdown has been greatly reduced, with a backup cooling system now online. Early reports (from Hillary Clinton, no less) that U.S. armed forces flew emergency coolant to the plant appear to have been in error.
  • I’m still hearing casualty figures in the 1,000 range, but not significantly higher. Japan’s strict building code and high quality engineering probably saved, at a minimum, tens of thousands of lives.
  • Some 50 aftershocks have hit Japan, some as powerful as 6.6. Radically less powerful than the original earthquake, but unusually strong for aftershocks.
  • As bad as things are, the quake and tsunami have caused a lot less damage to businesses and industry than they might have.

    • Dawn just broke over there. Here’s footage of the aftermath:

    A video of the massive whirlpool formed off the coast in the wake of the tsunami:

    (If you know of a better video not recorded off a camera aimed at a TV, let me know.)

    And finally, a much-needed moment of levity. I LOLed…

    My earlier posts for earthquake/video footage can be found here, here, and here

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    Still More Video From the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami

    Friday, March 11th, 2011

    A few more videos. Not a lot of context for some of these, so I can’t tell if they’re from Sendai or someplace else.

    This provides a scary, up-close demonstration of how fast the tsunami came in:

    Japanese office workers run as bits of building start falling around them:

    There’s a reason they call it the Ring of Fire: The quake has activated several regional volcanos:

    It’s almost like playing Sim City, where you inflict all the disasters (earthquake, flood, volcano, monster) on the city at once…

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    Japan Earthquake News Update

    Friday, March 11th, 2011

    The current news, as near as I can gather:

  • Death toll is now estimated at 1,000. Let’s hope that wrong (like the early reports out of Katrina), but looking at footage of the debris wall the tsunami swept in, it might not be.
  • Phone lines down, trains down, subways down, two runways at Narita open.
  • There’s evidently a possible danger of a meltdown at a couple of nuclear reactors due to the destruction of the cooling system. And that’s even after the control rods have been deployed.

    • More Videos

    A grocery store during the quake. Don’t know us this is Sendai, Tokyo or somewhere else:

    The Ichihara oil refinery on fire:

    The tsunami coming in:

    More tsunami flood footage:

    Still more:

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    Pictures From the Japanese Earthquake

    Friday, March 11th, 2011

    Holy Moly.

    Note: This and all other posts on the Sendai earthquake and tsunami (including numerous videos) can be found here.

    Correction: As the commenter below notes, this picture is from the 1995 Kobe earthquake, not today’s quake.

    This one is particularly scary:

    The apartment buildings behind it seem intact. Maybe the tsunami surge tossed a ship into the highway.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

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    8.9 Earthquake, Tsunami Hits Japan

    Friday, March 11th, 2011

    The quake hit at 2:46 p.m local time about 230 miles off the coast of northern Japan near Sendai. A Wikipedia entry is already up, and they’re calling it the largest earthquake to hit Japan in recorded history. It looks pretty bad, although thankfully not “sink into the sea” bad.

    But it looks bad enough:

    This CNN story also has embedded footage of the tsunami coming inland carrying debris, boats and burning houses with it.

    This NNK report is saying the tsunami waves were 10 meters high.

    Compilation of live quake footage:

    Here’s footage of the tsunami inundating a Japanese airport:

    If there’s one comfort in this, Japan is very good at earthquake and tsunami preparation. If something this big hit, say, Haiti, just about everything on the island would be gone.

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