8.4-9 Magnitude Quake Hits Japan!

[kup]

Damnit... can't find Tiger Convoy's phone number... I tried calling DFAT but they only look after Australian citizens and told me to call the Japanese Consulate... and they had me on hold for ages. Understandably there must be a flood of people calling in, so I'll keep looking for Tiger Convoy's number later or try calling the Consulate again later.

For anyone else who attended Tiger Convoy's farewell dinner in Sydney (Lord_Zed, you were there right?) see if you can find those cards he gave us with his contact details. Without it all I have to go on is his name, DOB and the prefecture he lives in.

Doesn't Dirge have his details?

[kurdt_the_goat]

Thankfully my wife's parents aren't in the vicinity of these disasters. A couple of her friends though are stuck without food in Eastern Japan inc Tokyo.
There's still so many aftershocks going on... 2.5k people dead, 10k people missing. Anyone looking to donate relief funds should head to Global Giving

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Oh God no...it's looking like there's a second nuclear reactor going into meltdown...

[Sam]

I wonder how religious beliefs justify events like this?

This is something that I believe no one has a satisfactory answer to.

I believe instead a better course of action is to help people caught in these disasters in any way we can (e.g. donation to non-profit disaster relief organisations, or helping the people directly if possible for those at the scene, etc.).

Thankfully, I have just checked that my Japanese friends are safe.

[GoktimusPrime]

Remember that the predominant religious belief in Japan is Buddhism, and Buddhist teaching revolves around suffering (re: Four Noble Truths). The principle teachings of the Jedi religion is also fundamentally the same.

Anyway, apparently the force of Friday's quake in Japan is 30,000 times more powerful than the one in Christchurch last month.

Not surprisingly online toy stores have posted notifications of delays in delivery due to the earthquake.
http://item.rakuten.co.jp/es-toys/4907953477636/

HLJ's posted a detailed report with photos:
http://www.hlj.com/specials/sendaiea...ake-banner.png

[5FDP]

Just read that apparently the quake shifted the whole of Japan 2.4 metres and that aftershocks greater than 7.0 are expected in the next three days. It puts everything into perspective reading things like this.

[liegeprime]

wow, Japan is getting nearer Korea? Just like how NZ is getting nearer Australia. The news tonight was showing a town minamusisomething whatever , it was completely wiped out except for the hospital... terrible! and Meltdown in the nuclear power plants, tsktsktsk..... the news says that if it did , the radioactive material could cause a whole lifetime of cancers to those exposed..... and last even beyond their lifetime.......

[1AZRAEL1]

Man, what a disaster this has turned out to be. My thoughts go out to those who have lost lives, and those that have lost loved ones. This is the biggest disaster, that I can remember anyway.

[GoktimusPrime]

The news tonight was showing a town minamusisomething whatever , it was completely wiped out except for the hospital... terrible!

Minami Sanriku

and Meltdown in the nuclear power plants, tsktsktsk..... the news says that if it did , the radioactive material could cause a whole lifetime of cancers to those exposed..... and last even beyond their lifetime.......

There seems to be conflicting reports coming out as to whether or not the generators actually gone into meltdown or not. There was certainly an explosion, but not necessarily a meltdown. One of my colleagues told me that apparently the nuclear power plant in Fukushima is a very old one and built on outdated technology and was actually scheduled to be decommissioned next year! There's another nuclear power plant that was closer to the epicentre of the quake, but there was no explosion or danger of meltdown because it has newer technology and something like 6 different backup generators, whereas the old Fukushima plant only has 2 back up generators and a back up diesel engine -- all of which have failed. Thus they're now flooding the plant with sea water in a desperate attempt to cool the damn thing down (but apparently it's not working)!

The government's already evacuated everyone from a 20km radius of the plant and has already scanned nearby residents and given them medication just in case. Hopefully nobody's been adversely effected by any radiation, and if the plant does meltdown, then at least there won't be anybody near it (the last thing anyone wants is another Chernobyl).

We had 65 students and several teachers visit our school from Japan today, although they're from Okinawa which didn't even feel anything (although these students and staff were already in Australia when the quake happened). But nevertheless everyone was passing on their concerns to them and we observed 1 minute silence this morning. I spoke to some of our students who have family in Japan -- so far noone's been hurt. One student whose family is in Tokyo said that they went without electricity for a while, but otherwise everyone's okay. Another student said that the phone lines were all jammed calling into Japan and they had to keep calling for 6 hours before getting through. That would have been an excruciating wait.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

Now there's a volcano erupting in the SouthWest...this is just getting ridiculous.