BBRoundtable

It just happened a few hours ago as a result of a massive earthquake (8.9) in Japane Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes!!!!

Tsunami

Yea saw that, West coast is in warnings also. Calif, Oregon, Wa

Yeah, there's other live video of this, too. Apparently, this is now the sixth-strongest earthquake in terms of magnitude to have ever been recorded, period. It ranks just a little ahead of the Chile earthquake from last year. For comparison purposes, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake that caused the Indonesia and Thailand tsunamis was a 9.3 (that's #2 overall). Absolutely nuts. The one and only good thing here is that Japan is a lot better equipped to deal with the disaster than Indonesia was, thanks to its much higher overall technology level. Way fewer people should die as a result.

Yeah; my area was okay because Vancouver Island shields the city, though the west coast of the island was on a watch (may still be). There's really not much you can say about this... Red Cross and several other organizations are accepting donations to help with relief, though, if you want to help. Every few dollars helps.

I think the only place outside of Japan that got hit with large enough waves to really take any damage was Hawaii, and I haven't heard any reports of major damage or casualties there, thankfully. This is gonna take a long time for Japan to clean up, though. Now they're having problems with nuclear reactors overheating because the electricity to run the cooling systems has all gone down. It's a really big mess.

Santa Cruz harbor took damage estimated at 15 million not including damaged or sunk private boats.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_17595398?nclick_check=1

Surging water generated from the powerful earthquake off Japan's coast hit the California coastline Friday morning, capsizing boats, splintering docks and panicking thousands of seaside spectators from Eureka to Santa Cruz who had expected a mild amusement but were sent scrambling to higher ground.

Gaaaah, why do people have no common sense? If that had been anything serious, they would have just made the problem even worse when rescuers had to come in. A tsunami is not a sight-seeing tour.

We had a couple here in Oregon get swept out to sea because they had to go walking on the beach during the warning. Luckily, they were rescued. I know there were a few deaths though in Californina caused by people doing the same thing. People just don't get the idea that it might be dangerous. We still had 8 to 9 ft waves on the Or-Ca border when it hit.

Watching the footage on the news last night was amazing. The devastion was incredible. Here on the West coast they were showing live footage on the 11pm news. It was just heartbreaking to watch.

Update on the power plant. It's releasing steam in a way experts are saying was intended; it contains small amounts of radiation that fade within about five seconds. Fuel rods are suspected to be okay. Still, everyone within 20km has been evacuated.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/03/1 ... 7W20110312

Japan is still having trouble with it's plant. I wonder if the EQ Rescue crew they sent to Christchurch was called back? Also, here is before and after photos of the Japanese coast.

Nakor wrote:Gaaaah, why do people have no common sense? If that had been anything serious, they would have just made the problem even worse when rescuers had to come in. A tsunami is not a sight-seeing tour.

Because some people are morons. Anyone who purposely goes out to take pictures KNOWING that a tsunami is coming deserves to get swept out to sea. Dumbtards.

In the meantime, now Japan is having an entirely different problem: a severe lack of body bags and cremation equipment. There are so many dead all at once that the funeral homes and other cremation services are just totally overwhelmed, especially since many of the cities and towns that were the hardest-hit aren't that big and don't normally have a need for large services of this kind. I dunno what kind of aid the US has sent to Japan so far, but if we haven't included more supplies for gathering the dead in a sanitary fashion, we really should. Besides the fact that corpses spread disease, it might also provide some small comfort to the families of those who have died, knowing that they can get them a proper funeral.

Frong wrote:Because some people are morons. Anyone who purposely goes out to take pictures KNOWING that a tsunami is coming deserves to get swept out to sea. Dumbtards.

Local radio was pleading for people to stay away from the harbor. I gotta long list of adjectives for those miserable idiots who ignored common sense...

"On their own" would be one that comes to mind, as in "They're on their own if they get swept out to sea, because the rescuers have better things to do than waste their time saving idiots."