I`m here now. It was intense. I was with my daughter, the house started shaking, but I figured it would go away like the others. This time, it got worse and worse. Then panick, adrenaline kicks in. I grabbed my daughter, got out of the house. Luckily, our house didn`t collapse. It reminded me of that movie 2012. All the car`s alarms were on, all the power lines are shaking, and it didn`t stop. It stopped eventually, but only a few minutes after, there was another one. This one wasn`t as bad. In the past few hours, we`ve had a few after shocks. I`m in Tokyo, so I think it was one of the worst places hit. Trains have stopped, builidings have collapsed, there are fires, it`s bad. I can handle hurricanes and almost anything mother nature has to offer. But I wouldn`t wish earthquakes this regularly on any one. We`re fine. Good looking out CF.
This is terrible. Poor people in Japan. Stay safe, Clutchfans posters in Japan. I hope the Tsunamis will not be too devastating and people can escape the coastal areas in time.
I wake up, find out about this, but it looks like my grandparents and friends are okay. Sounds morbid, but I am glad it looks like the epicenter was in northern Japan - if it was south of Tokyo, I'd prefer not to think about it. Chamillionaire, where do you live there anyways?
Tsunami is expected to continue and get bigger in the Northeastern coast of Japan (Iwate, Miyazaki pref.). Aftershocks with magnitude 4-5 just announced. Scary stuff.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-asiapacific/ Terrible. Hopefully nothing comes from this.
bullardfan, are you in Tokyo? I have a close friend who's traveling back to the states and had to stop by Tokyo for a few hours when the quake & tsunami hit. I'm very worried. Are the airports ok? I hope you're fine as well.
Sendai airport: <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-DSSssHxm4Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I was just playing with some of my xbox friends who live in Hawaii late last night...hope they and the rest are ok.
Damn... 8.9 Hope all Clutchfans in Japan and Hawaii are safe and anyone on the American Pacific should get to higher ground.
I've said this before but the largest man made factor in an earthquake is building standards. I haven't seen details yet of how shallow this quake is but I suspect overall this earthquake will be much much more powerful than the Haiti one yet although devastating the loss of life will be a tiny fraction than Haiti mostly due to vastly superior building standards in Japan than in Haiti. Obviously Japan can afford better buildings than Haiti but a lot of building standards isn't just a matter of money but of practices. Another factor is development pattern. The deforestation of Haiti essentially magnifies almost every disaster that has hit that country including earthquakes by weakening hillsides and increasing erosion. Earthquakes are the least predictable of natural disasters but the loss of life from them can be prevented with better building and development standards.
