Yeah, we’ve felt smaller quakes up here before. It’s fascinating (and, for some, nauseating) how long the swaying goes on.
Still, I vastly prefer swaying to the alternative.
My mother’s friend Keiko hasn’t checked in with her yet – she lives in Tokyo but her mother lives in North Japan and her town was swamped by the tsunami. No word on what’s happened to Keiko or her mom.
tv news is reporting that emergency generators are being delivered to the damaged nuclear plant. seems the on site backup systems are failing or inadequate, they didn’t supply details.
Okay, I love research and playing detective, and I found this on his FB page from Autolycus’s dad: “John called us at 4:30 am and was with friends at his apartment in Aomori with no power or water, but using candles and gas heater to keep warm. The building is ok. The tremors weren’t too severe where he is in Aomori.”
(Also posted in his "Ask the . . . " thread)
I hope everything goes well. I’m sure your husband will be fine.
MTV News had an item about how the tsunami fear temporarily shut down filming of “Twilight: Breaking Dawn” in Vancouver.
kapri thanks for the good news on Autolycus.
I started watching this about midnight when one of my FB friends currently in Israel but who mostly lives in Japan posted about it. Horrible. Just horrible.
Stay safe, Japan Dopers.
Years ago there was a National Lampoon newspaper parody where the front page headline was about some minor local crime – “Powder Room Bandit Still at Large”, as I recall – while tiny type at the bottom of the page announced “Japan Destroyed”. And the entire story on Japan was from the perspective of a local couple who were forced to change their vacation plans.
Thanks, TP. I know he’ll be OK really. There is nothing I can do so I’m putting him out of my mind. Hope that doesn’t sound cold, it’s not meant to be! His group is getting sent to Iwate. They leave this morning but won’t arrive till tomorrow morning.
I am very glad to hear that **auto ** is safe.
Reports now that there are 5 reactors at 2 plants that are in trouble. A state of emergency has been declared.
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OK, it can’t be a “China Syndrome.” Where is Japan’s antipode?
Curious, a 40 story building in Omaha Nebraska had similar internal damage from wind loads due to a tornado. The structure was being evacuated, and the folks in the cement block walled stairwells reported spalling and cracking as the building swayed and twisted as the tornado passed over the structure.
It is apparent the deflection of the steel frame of a building would be similar from seismic as well as tornadic activity, short of failing the structure.
Brazil and Paraguay.
I’d be thinking about packing my stuff if I was there. This is getting scary. Radiation leaks go up into the atmosphere and get carried around the world by air currents.
Around South America (Slightly to the east). IIRC
your estimate seems to be correct. they (cnn) are reporting about 10 minutes warning time between the quake and the first wave hitting the shore.
the water hitting the airport at 3:55 ish must have been a later wave.
they do say that disaster preparedness is close to a religion there, so as soon as the quake hit the alarms were sounded and people zipped into the routes that they practiced.
i am impressed by the video of hard hats being passed out in an office, some people have masks and hats on as they are leaving buildings.
I can imagine that it would be akin to a pebble falling into a puddle of water, but on such an immense scale. There would be a lot of up/down (amplitude) motion if you are on top of the epicenter. The farther away you are from the epicenter, the more rolling motion you would get. Very similar if the earthquake was on land, except the viscosity of water versus rock/soil.
She was not an expert, but one BBC reporter asked what I thought at the time to be a rather stupid question. After the quake and before the tsunami, she was on the line to some official in Japan, a tsunami alert was issued, and she asked: “So, what do Japanese people do in a tsunami alert?” I mentally slapped my head, but I never would have imagined the answer to have been: “They go out and snap photos.”
Damn, the place has grown since we lived there. I blame all those nubile high-school girls wearing next to nothing. I knew it would have consequences.
Here’s a pretty cool site for figuring out the antipode of anyplace
Here’s is the antipode for Sendai, Japan
Wow look at all the earthquakes in Japan today.
From the US Geological Service