My japanese friend in Tokyo was able to contact his son who was at home in the suburbs. However, all trains are suspended, he has 20km to walk on foot to get back home with a fractured foot (from before the quake). He can walk but not run. For information, a magnitude 8 quake is 10 times stronger than a 7, which is 10 times stronger than a 6 and so on. US surveys estimate the quake as a 8.9 The japanese live stream right now displays text : "over 200 dead, and several hundred as missing". Edit : If I understand correctly, some of the private railways in Tokyo have started operating again on some lines. Edit 2: Ah shit, the dead count just upped to over 300 people. Edit 3: I have identified the city in blazes : http://maps.google.fr/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=fr&geocode=&q=japan&aq=&sll=46.965259,1.73584&sspn=9.642093,19.863281&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Japon&ll=38.889563,141.583729&spn=0.089789,0.155182&z=13
i have been watching this on tv and the internet. this is just insane and i hope all is well for those folks out there. They just showed where the wave just started to hit the west coast.
Watching that tsunami roll across fields, roads, picking up cars and houses and engulfing everything in its path was horrifying. I cannot imagine what those poor people are suffering right now and I fear that the final death toll will be much greater,
now things are looking grim at that reactor..my hear goes out to the japanese. I have an immediate gut reaction to that, but now is not the time to place blame.
when I first saw that waves..knowing it was hitting hundreds of miles of coast...I thought tens of thousands dead..I hope thats wrong.
The roof has blown off one of the reactors....its chernobyl all over again..this must be a meltdown. Also they have not fixed the other reactor yet. It may also blow up.
There is another quake alert just as I write, on live jp TV. magnitude unknown. Not out of the woods yet... edit : Magnitude 6.0, only 40km away
The earth has been just relentless lately. This is sad news. And since everyone is too lazy to post a video...
The roof blew off, yeah - but it's nothing like Chernobyl because the reactor itself is still contained and hasn't leaked radiation anywhere but the local area. Partial meltdown seems likely but it doesn't look like a major disaster at this point.
google before and after pictures... https://picasaweb.google.com/118079222830783600944/Japan?feat=directlink#
yup and the unit number 3 blew today and they say unit 2 is gona go also not including the other plants that are having issues also. and this is worse than russias plant we have moved our ships off there coast line now because of rad readings being to high.
Its nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl... yet. The reactors are still in sealed containers so there isn't too much radiation. However if one of the containers breaks it's going a catastrophic effect. Radiation levels are still within legal limits. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12733393