This is true and good advice. But depending on where your contact person is in Japan, cell phone service is not up yet and landlines are down for most areas in the earthquake zone, still. Cell phones are getting more and more connected each day though.
DH has to send messengers or physically go to some of the people he needs to talk with if they are out of radio range, it’s very frustrating for them. Though he has been able to call me from the gym where he spends most nights since the end of the first week. So we have been lucky.
I just watched a replay on my local PBS station. What is depressing is how much better prepared the Japanese were than the United States is. When something like this happens on the US west coast the death toll is going to be much worse. I doubt that even 10% of the fatalities in Japan were actually caused by the quake. Most of the deaths were caused by the Tsunami.
That’s exactly what I came in to mention. Excellent content and summary for something that just happened so recently. A lot of the footage I’d never seen before.
As for building even higher defenses, keep in mind this was a ‘thousand year’ quake. Something of this magnitude happens so infrequently it may be many generations before we see the like again. Who knows what measures may be available then and at what point do the steps required begin to take a toll who’s weight becomes questionable, even against the possible benefits received.
It looks to me like th actual earthquake preparations were actually pretty effective. It was the tsunami that caused the most loss of life. There are some countries where if this earthquake had happened, they would be counting the living instead of the dead, since it would be a much shorter list.
I went to Google Earth to look up Kesennuma. Looks like Google Earth has updated a wide swath of the Miyagi prefecture imagery since I last looked at it a couple of weeks ago. It now shows the tsunami damage and it’s overwhelming. You can clearly see just how far into the coastal cities the tsunami reached, as there is a point where the buildings are whole and then everything up until that and on down to the sea is obliterated. It’s simply ungraspable.
Also, Google Earth is even able to depict clumps of rubble floating offshore from many towns. I’m looking at Yamada, Japan, and the adjacent ocean has clumps of what look like the framing from houses clinging together in floating islands.
There just was was another earthquake off the coast of northern Honshu, and a tsunami warning, but the height of only 1 meter, but it could be several times higher in spots.
It was a 6 on the Japanese scale, and lasted for a minute. Haven’t heard of the magnitude yet.
We could feel it here in Tokyo, but not as strong as some of the others.
Shit bloody bugger that was another big one. Magnitude 7.4, depth 40 km, no effect on the nuclear power plant so far.
It was a 3 up in Hokkaido where we were. Shook me and the big boy out of bed. Big one yanked little one up as we have a rule to be in the same room during a quake if possible, but we have put him back now. The bathwater was sloshing. Yuck.
It was another widespread one. Just came upstairs to find the door of our big bookshelf had swung open. That bothers me because it’s not tethered to the wall, it’s the only dangerous bit of furniture we own…
Big kid is worried sick about his father who was in the big quake zone. I keep telling him that his Dad is sleeping in a gym that withstood the big one last month and escaped (just) the tsunami so there’s no reason that he’ll be hurt this time. The repetition seems to be working as he’s agreed to go back to bed. Fully dressed though. Little one is in bed with me now.
I hope you guys and your little ones can get some sleep. A 7.4 here in California would be a major pants-wetter, and I’m sorry you have to endure this on top of everything else.
It was only a 3 here where we are. It’s just that our Dad/DH is down there so we are all ultra-sensitive to them right now. He was able to send a mail saying he’s OK so no worries now.