Big quake off the coast of Japan just triggered a giant wave that was headed (and may still be going) MY way… and towards the coastlines of the Pacific Ocean. Apparently the time for that arrival has passed for us, and I haven't heard of any news regarding damage. Since the island I'm on is surrounded on all sides by deep water those waves don't seem to affect us much. I have yet to see tall waves wash over this little near-paradise island.

I hope the people in Japan are alright. From what I've seen of the news they're saying it's their worst quake ever. I pray for everyone over there who's affected by this, including any members of Drunkduck who may hail from there.

Yep, major earthquake in Japan… 8.9 … just huge with all sorts of destruction. And as you mentioned, a tsunami destroying all sorts of towns and cities along the coastline of Japan and now moving outwards toward other pacific countries.

Ya, I heard about this. I thought it was just the wave that did the damage, not the quake? Ah well, I haven't seen much yet on the news.

Reminds me of the Christchurch quake in New Zealand of the other day. It was only about 6.5 or something, but very shallow and pretty much destroyed the whole city. Even now, a week or two later, the place is still flat. Massive damage, many dead and lost…

Earthquake season?

well im glad to hear yer allright. terrible thing to have happened, bless em all.

I just saw the cellphone pictures they have up. The flooding just makes me cringe… the recovery process is going to be heartbreaking.

(This is just another reason I'm glad I don't live on the Pacific coast and/or an earthquake prone area. Shit's scary.)

What is it with Tsunamies becomming a common placed event in this world? I don't think I can remember a single catastrophic tsunami (specifically talking about a giant wave covering a coastal region after an earthquake) prior to the 2004 boxing day tsunamy. Now I feel like we're having one every other year.

I mean, were news like these just swept under the rug prior to the boxing day wave, which caused global interest in it to increase or are we actualy looking at a drastic increase in ocean floor earthquakes?

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What is it with Tsunamies becomming a common placed event in this world? I don't think I can remember a single catastrophic tsunami (specifically talking about a giant wave covering a coastal region after an earthquake) prior to the 2004 boxing day tsunamy. Now I feel like we're having one every other year.

I mean, were news like these just swept under the rug prior to the boxing day wave, which caused global interest in it to increase or are we actualy looking at a drastic increase in ocean floor earthquakes?

I just looked up some information about historical tsunamis… they seem to happen pretty frequently, I guess they're only being reported on so much recently because of how bad the devastation was in 2004?

They seem to mostly happen in the Pacific which wasn't as connected to the rest of the world until fairly recently (like the 1700s) and they've only been studied seriously in the past 100 years, so that's probably part of the reason why we haven't heard a lot about them until recently.

I dunno. >>

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What is it with Tsunamies becomming a common placed event in this world?

I don't think so.
There are a few factors here.
The main thing is that the world is far more connected. Information transfer is instant now from multiple sources and dissemination is massive and widespread. With global news networks on a constant 24hour cycle.

It wasn't like that in the past, even when we finally got high-speed communication in the form of the telegraph, that was mostly single source with very limited spread. And when phones and satellite communication became more popular even as near as the 90's the 24 hour news thing was only in its infancy then and communication was still mostly point to point… Limited to phone-calls and specifically set up expensive satellite news linkups.
With the internet as it is today information spread has exploded.

Then we have things like increasing population; populations increasingly inhabiting less safe areas because of it. And the sea level is always rising a little bit at a time too- it only takes a minute rise to result in massively more destruction after an event like this because volumes are compressed and concentrated…

Dodger
They seem to mostly happen in the Pacific which wasn't as connected to the rest of the world until fairly recently (like the 1700s) and they've only been studied seriously in the past 100 years, so that's probably part of the reason why we haven't heard a lot about them until recently.

What she said ^_^

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I remember when they were just called “tidal-wave” :(
It's still just as valid a name because it was the term used to refer to this phenomena, not literally referring to tides. “Tsunami” is only the Japanese word for “harbour wave” afterall, in reality it's just another general term like “Tidal wave” that got re-purposed…
But then, this current one DID hit Japan so they can call it whatever the hell they like! :)

I'm well aware of there being Tsunamies in the past; it wasn't my intention to state that there hadn't been any since the 17hundreds.

My point was that growing up, I never heard of any big news reports about tsunamies until after the 2004 one. That one definetly made me pause to think, especially since it's one of the most devastating natural catastrophy in recorderded human history, with a death toll that exceeds the population of my country. At that point I thought that we just witnessed a rare even in history; that such moments were far and few between. By now I've heard about at least 2-3 distinct tsunamies happening between the 2004 one and the one hitting now; not hearing about a single one prior. Granted, those waves were insignificant compared to these two aforementioned heavyweights which was kinda the reason why I wrote this part:

I mean, were news like these just swept under the rug prior to the boxing day wave, which caused global interest in it to increase or are we actualy looking at a drastic increase in ocean floor earthquakes?

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-post-

I was agreeing with you bro. @_@

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I have a few friends with family in Japan, they seem to be okay. An exboyfriend of mine is stationed in Japan with the Navy… can't get in touch with him, but it seems like none of the American bases were affected too badly.

Santa Cruz in California got hammered too. The damage in the marinas look a lot worse than any hurricane I've seen.

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My point was that growing up, I never heard of any big news reports about tsunamies until after the 2004 one.

Yeah, the point is that before this period the world just wasn't as connected.
There was no “sweeping stuff under the rug” or increases in frequency, it's just as simple as faster and broader dissemination of news.

I remember back in 2004 many people going back into the archives and digging out many many reports of similar events. The problem was that in the past news simply didn't spread as far so accounts are isolated and limited.
You can find it yourself though, the Krakatoa event is STILL legendary and one of the easiest to learn about since there were a few more “white” people in the vicinity there, as well as colonies being affected AND the telegraph was around to assist in the spread of the news of that event.

Owch… damage as far as California… I'm here in the middle of the Pacific between Hawaii and Japan and so far there's no reported damage here. The governor is keeping the beaches closed ‘til the damage assessment (if any) of those places is done. While I should feel fortunate, I’m not happy about hearing about what's going on in the western U.S. and the havoc it caused everywhere. Haven't heard any news from other places in the Pacific, such as Australia (which is directly south of me… specifically Sydney).

Lonnehart
Big quake off the coast of Japan just triggered a giant wave that was headed (and may still be going) MY way… and towards the coastlines of the Pacific Ocean. Apparently the time for that arrival has passed for us, and I haven't heard of any news regarding damage. Since the island I'm on is surrounded on all sides by deep water those waves don't seem to affect us much. I have yet to see tall waves wash over this little near-paradise island.

I hope the people in Japan are alright. From what I've seen of the news they're saying it's their worst quake ever. I pray for everyone over there who's affected by this, including any members of Drunkduck who may hail from there.

I had some classmates talking about Japan, which was weird since we live in L.A., but I didn't take notice. I can't believe this happened without me knowing about it sooner..and my mom and little brother are currently residing in Taiwan, which is south of Japan. I hope the tsunami didn't strike there D:

Yeah, apparently this is the fourth largest earthquake to be reported of all time. So very significant, very devastating.

I happen to live in one the areas considered in danger along the California coast, and it sort of bothers me how much coverage we're getting of it. The damage is minimal, even in Santa Cruz. Nothing as they exaggerated it to be. I can understand being prepared and all, but the worst thing that's happened in my area is that a beach or two was flooded. Japan is where the true destruction is happening, yet our news networks here treat it as a second thought.

Anyway, my point is, we should be more worried and concerned for what's happening over there than with our own coast. Luckily, there are online news networks (Al Jazeera) that agree with me and I can watch.

When I heard about it I didn't think much of it, but once I got to school and watched a few videos… Christ. I've never seen buildings surf before. What really got me is the swaying skyscrapers in Tokyo right now. I'm well aware tall structures do that, but there is something so eerie about.

I'm shocked by these nightmarish images…

…but the danger of nuclear contamination tops it all. Japan was as well prepared for an earthquake and a tsunami as you can possibly be, yet they seem utterly unprepared for something happening to their reactors. It just seems so careless. I understand that Japan doesn't have the ressources to satisfy their need for energy by other means, though. Still, given the dangers of nuclear power, that doesn't seem like a rational trade-off.

Abt_Nihil
…but the danger of nuclear contamination tops it all. Japan was as well prepared for an earthquake and a tsunami as you can possibly be, yet they seem utterly unprepared for something happening to their reactors. It just seems so careless. I understand that Japan doesn't have the ressources to satisfy their need for energy by other means, though. Still, given the dangers of nuclear power, that doesn't seem like a rational trade-off.

But that's exactly what nuclear energy is all about: Playing make believe.

In theory it's a fantastic source of power, but the reality is that it's amazingly dangerous, and the full lifetime and clean-up coast of nuclear power means that it's actually one of the most expensive power generation options…
But because disasters are thought of as random and infrequent we can pretend they're safer than they are.
And because that cost is spread over so much time we can pretend they're a lot cheaper than they are.

ozoneocean
I remember when they were just called “tidal-wave” :(
It's still just as valid a name because it was the term used to refer to this phenomena, not literally referring to tides. “Tsunami” is only the Japanese word for “harbour wave” afterall, in reality it's just another general term like “Tidal wave” that got re-purposed…

According to wiki though they stopped using ‘tidal wave’ because a tsunami has nothing to do with tides.

Exboyfriend in the Navy says that they're headed back to shore to help. They're still pretty far out, but he said “there's shit everywhere” intact chunks of houses floating by, at least 13 doors, wood, he said he even saw some clothes just drifting out there.

| : There are no words. It's just going to get worse the closer they get.

ksteak

ozoneocean
I remember when they were just called “tidal-wave” :(
It's still just as valid a name because it was the term used to refer to this phenomena, not literally referring to tides. “Tsunami” is only the Japanese word for “harbour wave” afterall, in reality it's just another general term like “Tidal wave” that got re-purposed…

According to wiki though they stopped using ‘tidal wave’ because a tsunami has nothing to do with tides.

This is one of the areas that Wiki isn't entirely reliable.
For one thing “Tidal wave” doesn't necessarily have anything to do with tides either, that's just part of it's old name. this was widely accepted, acknowledged and lived with for many decades.
Tsunamis or harbour waves could be caused by a tide, storms, anything. It's just a big wave in a confined harbour. Both names are perfectly equal.

But Tsunami IS better here of course!

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I wonder how long they'll take to recover from this. THAT will be interesting. Japan is an extremely wealthy and able country, much better placed to handle a disaster like this even by itself than say somewhere like Turkey or Pakistan that were devastated by quakes in the last couple of years.
China handled itself pretty well in its last horrible quake. The US did very poorly (famously so) with Hurricane Katrina.
My thoughts are that Japan will rally very well.

The images of Minamisanriku made me start uncontrolably crying when I first saw them.
10,000 people of 20,000 missing…

I'm cutting out the middle men and watching NHK world . The BBC is taking too long to get new info in between them cutting to the weather and the SNP conference in Glasgow. Not to mention that they have barely anybody over there that speaks Japanese. You'd think they'd send a translator over there with the rescue teams if that is the case.

ozoneocean
But that's exactly what nuclear energy is all about: Playing make believe.

In theory it's a fantastic source of power, but the reality is that it's amazingly dangerous, and the full lifetime and clean-up coast of nuclear power means that it's actually one of the most expensive power generation options…
But because disasters are thought of as random and infrequent we can pretend they're safer than they are.
And because that cost is spread over so much time we can pretend they're a lot cheaper than they are.

I absolutely agree. But my point is: If the Fukushima reactors weren't located in Japan, but, say, in Germany, they would be considered perfectly safe (and, for all I know, rightfully so). But the way it is, it's still careless - and it's a different level of carelessness than when dealing with nuclear power in general.

Oh shoot! According to the newest reports, a reactor in the Fukushima power-plant has just gone critical. If this is true, then we're looking at another Chernobyl disaster.

In other news, apparently there are a group of people in the states calling the tsunami a karmic payback for the Pearl Harbor…
I… just don't know how to respond to that.

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ccording to the newest reports, a reactor in the Fukushima power-plant has just gone critical.

Shit. D: Shitshitshitshitshitshit.

In other news, apparently there are a group of people in the states calling the tsunami a karmic payback for the Pearl Harbor…
I… just don't know how to respond to that.

I'm… pretty sure that's a 4chan joke.

Dodger
I'm… pretty sure that's a 4chan joke.

Attempt at humor that has no taste? Yeah, sounds like them.

Yahoo is running a story that has 170,000 being evacuated from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. It's not clear whether it's because radiation levels are 1000X greater than usual, or that the core continues to heat. Supposedly the next 4 to 5 hours will determine whether there is a meltdown or not.

Earlier today I was congratulating Japan on the success of their preventative/training. The devastation is horrible, but considering that this is the worse earthquake recorded in Japan, followed by the tsunami, and loss of life expectation is approx. 1,000, there is a little to be grateful for when you compare the 100,000 lives lost from the 1900 earthquake and 6000 from the 1995.

But a meltdown? my prayers are with them.

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In other news, apparently there are a group of people in the states calling the tsunami a karmic payback for the Pearl Harbor…
I… just don't know how to respond to that.

Fucking idiots. There are no other words I can say about that.

No country deserves an earthquake, followed by a tsunami, followed by a potential Chernobyl. It really makes your stomach sink. I remember reading about it in detail in the paper and visibly shaking from it.

I've donated to the cause, and I recommend you do as well.

I reckon that 1000 deaths should be preemtively crowned underestimation of the year.
Nothing to be ashamed of. I was quite confident that Japan would be alright when I first heard the news.

Then I saw more footage. And everybody in my family had grown increasingly depressed by the whole thing…

… At least we were until the BBC interviewed a guy with a terrible wig on about the deaths. We laughed a lot at that.

Then the guilt kicked in and we were sad again.

It won't go ‘boom’ like Chernobyl did, read up on what some of the actual experts are saying.

Nothing major hit my side of the pacific coast but i wish i could extend some help out to those people.

Makes me wonder how webcomics can actually make a positive impact in this kind of situations.