The scale of this quake and sunami disaster is, on top of the disasters we've suffered this year is difficult to imagine. The pictures from Japan
are mind boggleing as to the amount of water moving inland, carrying ships and houses and trucks and cars and no doubt bodies.
My heart is heavy with sadness for the plight of the people of Japan and I fear for the inhabitants of many pacific islands who may be inundated.
The power of mother nature humbles us once again.
I usually watch all these disasters live on TV to keep up with what is happening.
The QLD floods and the NZ earthquake are a few recent examples. I watch them hour after hour, all night.
But this time I find this catastrophe is even too much for me, so I turned it off a couple of hours ago and have gone back to normal TV shows.
This one has really affected me and saddened me beyond belief!
I will pop back to the news channel later, but I find I can't sit glued to this one. It is just too profound!
You're right, Ken. This is just too horrific. I was watching some tsunami videos on YouTube the other night, of the recent destruction in Hawaii, and, thought that was bad.
This is something else altogether.
With the utmost respect, when I saw some of the news snippets tonight, I thought "Cloverfield".
Natural disasters are common on our Earth just look what happened last year around our planet. Japan is constantly being hit by earthquakes, if it's not somewhere in the world someone will be affected by either floods,fire,tornardo's or volcanoes.
We should be greatful that we live in Australia where we are rarely affected by the worst of these natural disasters.
But what really pees me off is the way the media again have hyped up a possible tsunami for the North, they should be taken to task by the broadcating commission for their wanton scare mongering.
Just in- their showing the footage showing Hawaii's ocean receded (the prelude before Tsunami hits) - what a strange looking site. People are taking picturies right on the shore line, aye! According to Sky News, their saying at this stage it seems that the waves should only reach 6ft to 2m.
As many of you know, I work for a large Japanese Company. Fortunately I am currently in New York (but was in Japan just a week or so ago).
The reports coming in are scary indeed. Although there has been no official statement made it sounds like all of our folks are safe and well. Some minor damage appears to have occured at one of our facilities but otherwise everything is still operational.
Our employees based in HQ in Tokyo have been unable to go home as much of the transportation system (largely train) has been impacted. They are camping out at the office where the canteen has been opened to provide food and some comfort to those spending the night at the office.
Interesting to read this article titled 'Moonageddon' from a few days ago.
In a fortnight Earth will experience the biggest moon it has seen in nearly two decades.
As well as providing some unique photo opportunities, some astronomers - well, one - are already predicting it may bring more worrying disruptions to the Earth’s climate patterns.
Earthquakes are not out of the question.
Dr Victor Gostin, Planetary and Environmental Geoscientist at Adelaide University.He told news.com.au the predictions of weather and earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters based on planetary configurations have not been successful, but there may be some correlation between near-equatorial large scale earthquakes and new and full moon situations.
“This is because the Earth-tides (analogous to ocean tides) may be the final trigger that sets off the earthquake,” he said.]Dr Victor Gostin, Planetary and Environmental Geoscientist at Adelaide University.
He told news.com.au the predictions of weather and earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters based on planetary configurations have not been successful, but there may be some correlation between near-equatorial large scale earthquakes and new and full moon situations.
“This is because the Earth-tides (analogous to ocean tides) may be the final trigger that sets off the earthquake,” he said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrB
Apparently this is 160x larger than the quake in Christchurch.
In terms of energy release, an 8.8 magnitude releases over 5500x as much energy as a 6.3 magnitude earthquake.
I recieve USGS earthquake alerts in my email for anything over mag 4.5.
Since the initial alert of mag 8.8 I have received another 50 alerts for the same area ranging from 5.1 to 7.1. A lot of them are within minutes of each other.
Those poor people must be at their wits end with constant rumbling like that.
Largest on record for Jaoan. 7th largest in world on record.
According to the US Geological survey, the March 11th earthquake was the
largest ever recorded to hit Japan and the seventh largest recorded in the world.
USGS still has it listed as 8.9. This morning ABC24 are talking 9.1. Now they are reporting tsunamis hitting the US west coast, wrecking moored boats.
The energy is proportional to (10^1.5)^magnitude. (From USGS.)
8.9 is 1.4 times the energy of 8.8
9.1 is 2.8 times the energy of 8.8
The Feb 22 Christchurch one was 6.3, so 9.1 is around 16000 times the energy.
The Sep 4 Christchurch one was 7.0, 11 times that of 6.3, but time and location meant it caused less damage.
That's right...the difference of 1 magnitude in the size of an earthquake means approximately 32 times the amount of energy between each successive magnitude.
People are taking picturies right on the shore line, aye! 
According to Sky News, their saying at this stage it seems that the waves should only reach 6ft to 2m.
