Japan hit by 8.9 quake, numerous tsunamis

[Gerry]

Couldn't sleep, woke up turned on TV to horrific news and video footage of massive tsunamis (over 21 feet and possibly up to 30 feet) literally pushing ships on shore and sweeping buildings and bridges away.

Tsunamis alerts posted to points as far away as Mexico coast. Hawaii on alert.

 

[tekz999]

Yes, stock index dropped from 150 to 450, i was a witness

 

[Gerry]

Geez, looking at footage of the tsunamis hitting. Incredible and horrific to see. All the water rushing off shore and a massive wave about a mile out or so coming.

I have never seen anything like it. One 24 foot wave confirmed at one port. Warning all pacific rim nations (including Hawaii) warned to seek higher grounds. Said it should be hitting Russia about now.

 

[Stian]

Terrible.. God bless.

 

[Gerry]

Now reporting one wall of water 33 feet high. So sad to see.

 

[ecomindia]

i m totally devastated.
could see the intensity of the damage!

God Bless the souls and Help those who need !
I pray for them, their well beings..

 

[electronic]

The video of Japan is so very sad.

 

[owntag]

It's pretty terrible to see what's happening.
God bless the Japanese people in this moment of the crisis.

 

[draggar]

Wow, this is horrible. The question is - what direction did the stress go in?

I'm watching a video - there is something on fire on top of the tsunami.

USGS shakemaps:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/global/shake/c0001xgp/

So the quake hit around 12:45am EST, so if the US West coast is going to be hit it'll be between 9PM and 1PM.

CNN has a video of a meeting in Japan - it starts after the shaking started and ended before it stopped. It was 1 minute and 30 seconds long. That is one HELL of an earthquake.

Reports are coming in that 32 are dead so far, if it was most other nations we would be looking at hundreds if not thousands at this time.

 

[ecomindia]

Reports are coming in that 32 are dead so far, if it was most other nations we would be looking at hundreds if not thousands at this time.

in lakhs the buildings have got destroyed, i bet if it would have been any developing nation, it would have been more then thousands.
i remember the tsunami hitting india years back ..

i always take the numbers reported as MISSING ..

 

[draggar]

About 15 minutes ago they reported having electrical problems with the nuclear power plant near Sendai.

Edit: 4.6 magnitude earthquake just hit near Hilo, Hawaii. I don't know if it's related or a precursor.

Hawaii tsunami could be up to 14 feet high, west coast USA could be between 3-10 feet high.

Multiple aftershocks over 7.

Tsunami just passed Midway - "several meters high"

Hawaii is under a tsunami WARNING. No longer a watch - around 1 hr 30 minutes away.

All airports in Hawaii are clsoed now (about 6:20AM EST)

 

[stevo]

Hawaii under tsunami watch. Wave expected in about 1 1/2 hours. Live coverage:

http://hitsunami.info/

 

[draggar]

Update: First waves will hit Hawaii around 3:07 local time (8:07am EST). West Coast USA between 10AM and noon EST.

It moved an aircraft carrier at Tokyo, the water levels dropped 6 feet.

http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/quake-moves-u-s-aircraft-carrier-from-yokosuka-pier-1.137338

---------- Post added at 08:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:10 AM ----------

Current tsumani levels:

Miday - 4.2 feet
Hawaii - 1-4 feet
Indonesia (warnings now cancelled) - 10cm (about 4 inches).
Guam - tsunami warning has been cancelled, no reports of damage.

They are warning that this may not be the worst, lets hope it is.

The news is reporting that the town of Sendai, Japan has been destroyed, 200-300 dead.

- 8 foot waves have been reported in Maui - sporadic damage but they don't think it'll be widespread.

 

[A D]

This is horrible and sad to watch.


-=DCG=-

 

[EM @MAJ.com]

I just watched the video from CNN. God Bless them for safety.

 

[draggar]

Sendai - much bigger than they claimed initially. It is a city - 200-300 people is much less than 1% of the population. A lot of damage is expected there from the earthquake and tsunami, though. 60,000-70,000 are moving into shelters.

 

[Gerry]

I just watched the video from CNN. God Bless them for safety.

Yeah, that's what I was watching at 3;30 this morning. They were doing some live shots from CNN (HKN) affiliates this morning. I was horrified by the footage shown. The water rushing out from shore to the sea was hellish and freakish as you could see the waves offshore it was joining up with.

 

[RustyK]

I just got up from a well needed sleep after staying up all night and morning for the Hawaii Tsunami warning. We came home before the all-clear was issued and found lots of debris from the ocean in our backyard as the ocean surges was a pretty scary sight to see. But besides our small encounter with mother nature's wrath, it saddens me to watch it out tv and in videos as cars trying to outbeat the tsunami only to find in front of them the other part of the Tsunami, trapped!. Images just runs through my mind. Unbelievable!

And whats even more unbelievable is this video (the first ever video I know of) to catch a real Tsunami in action "Live".
First Tsunami Destroys Everything In Its Way
Second Tsunami Rolls InLand

My heart goes out to the people in Japan. I hope it never happens again.

Added -----
Also. GOOGLE adds Crisis Response to thier homepage http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

 

[Tia Wood]

So sad and unbelievable to watch.

 

[Gerry]

And whats even more unbelievable is this video (the first ever video I know of) to catch a real Tsunami in action "Live".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bu4OpOSKH0&feature=related

I was watching that this morning at 330 am. It was too surreal to even imagine. Those were not even the first few waves that hit. But the one pictured in that vid were the most devastating. The only upside to this is the clarity of the videos and all the closed circuit camera feeds everywhere that will help scientists study these anomalies a little more. Unfortunately, the loss of life does not occur in lab or computer simulation.

Get well, Japan.