Large Quake Strikes Near Japan
charles
northeastern coast, shaking buildings in Tokyo for several minutes and
sending people out into the streets.
Japan's meteorological agency warns that a tsunami as high as 20 feet
(6 meters) could strike the coast near Miyagi prefecture, closest to
the epicenter.
The agency says the quake struck at 2:46 p.m. Friday at a depth of 6
miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off the eastern
coast.
Several quakes had hit the same region in recent days, including a 7.3
magnitude one on Wednesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/03/11/world/asia/AP-AS-Japan-Earthquake.html?_r=1&hp
nos...@nospam.invalid
> On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:40:46 -0800, Bob Officer <bobof...@127.0.0.7>
> wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:45:52 -0800, in sci.geo.earthquakes, HumBug!
>><Knews...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:13:33 -0800, charles <ckraftS...@west.net>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>TOKYO (AP) - A 7.9-magnitude earthquake
>>>
>>>Now upgraded to an 8.8, WITH a tsunami!
>>
>>8.9 and warnings and advisories.
>
> PLENTY of pictures of the tsunami that has hit japan.
>
> Warnings for most of the Pacific rim, especially Hawaii,
> and now the U.S. west coast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPFdGH-V1J8
charles
Belba Grubb II
EVALUATION
A TSUNAMI HAS BEEN GENERATED THAT COULD CAUSE DAMAGE ALONG
COASTLINES OF ALL ISLANDS IN THE STATE OF HAWAII. URGENT ACTION
SHOULD BE TAKEN TO PROTECT LIVES AND PROPERTY.
A TSUNAMI IS A SERIES OF LONG OCEAN WAVES. EACH INDIVIDUAL WAVE
CREST CAN LAST 5 TO 15 MINUTES OR MORE AND EXTENSIVELY FLOOD
COASTAL AREAS. THE DANGER CAN CONTINUE FOR MANY HOURS AFTER THE
INITIAL WAVE AS SUBSEQUENT WAVES ARRIVE. TSUNAMI WAVE HEIGHTS
CANNOT BE PREDICTED AND THE FIRST WAVE MAY NOT BE THE LARGEST.
TSUNAMI WAVES EFFICIENTLY WRAP AROUND ISLANDS. ALL SHORES ARE AT
RISK NO MATTER WHICH DIRECTION THEY FACE. THE TROUGH OF A TSUNAMI
WAVE MAY TEMPORARILY EXPOSE THE SEAFLOOR BUT THE AREA WILL
QUICKLY FLOOD AGAIN. EXTREMELY STRONG AND UNUSUAL NEARSHORE
CURRENTS CAN ACCOMPANY A TSUNAMI. DEBRIS PICKED UP AND CARRIED
BY A TSUNAMI AMPLIFIES ITS DESTRUCTIVE POWER. SIMULTANEOUS HIGH
TIDES OR HIGH SURF CAN SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE THE TSUNAMI HAZARD.
THE ESTIMATED ARRIVAL TIME IN HAWAII OF THE FIRST TSUNAMI WAVE IS
0307 AM HST FRI 11 MAR 2011
MESSAGES WILL BE ISSUED HOURLY OR SOONER AS CONDITIONS WARRANT.
(It's now 2:22 a.m. there, per the HVO cam time stamps.)
This and further data on the Japanese tsunami and DART buoy readings
are in the current National Weather Service tsunami warning at
http://forecast.weather.gov/showsigwx.php?warnzone=HIZ005&warncounty=HIC003&firewxzone=HIZ005&local_place1=Honolulu+HI&product1=Tsunami+Warning
Barb
Belba Grubb II
I don't know why the ones at a distance are flashing, including one in
the Atlantic. Per the NWS the wave is expected at HI in about 9
minutes.
B
Belba Grubb
come from the appropriate Tsunami Warning Center):
http://1.usa.gov/fxdgch
Hawaii, reported tsunami heights there and other places in the Pacific
as of 6:48 a.m. today (local time):
http://1.usa.gov/geGctk
Tough night on the Big Island: There was also a 4.6 quake last night
felt widely there, within 12 hours (I think) of the new fissure
eruption at Kilauea pausing.
Meanwhile, in Japan, the quake shut down 11 reactors, and in one of
them, at Fukushima, radiation levels are rising; 3000 people have been
evacuated, per Kyodo News in English (see http://english.kyodonews.jp/
for latest news).
Barb
nos...@nospam.invalid
nos...@nospam.invalid
> Yikes.
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709850
Check out this whirlpool, it looks like someone pulled the plug on
a bathtub... Is this subduction, subsidence or what?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPjZWpcOJaw
Belba Grubb
> Check out this whirlpool, it looks like someone pulled the plug on
> a bathtub... Is this subduction, subsidence or what?
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPjZWpcOJaw
Different processes, because it is water. I don't know for sure, but
believe it has to do with currents running in different directions and
at different strengths.
I remember seeing one not far off shore in a photo from the 2004
Sumatra wave.
Barb
-------
Edgar Allen Poe quotes the Encyclopedia Britannica...effectively:
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/eapoe/bl-eapoe-descent.htm
nos...@nospam.invalid
Weatherlawyer
> On Mar 12, 4:33 pm, <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
> > Check out this whirlpool, it looks like someone pulled the plug on
> > a bathtub... Is this subduction, subsidence or what?
>
> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPjZWpcOJaw
>
> Different processes, because it is water. I don't know for sure, but
> believe it has to do with currents running in different directions and
> at different strengths.
>
> I remember seeing one not far off shore in a photo from the 2004
> Sumatra wave.
Whirlpools exist in narrow channels when the tides off the banks are
at different times.
They have a rock pinnacle and they have a deep pool both offset to the
centre.
The Northern Irish Sea is a large whirl pool with the deep trench
called the St george channel and a pinnacle called the Isle of man.
Ocean wide pools are called gyres and have well known amphidromic
centres.
Belba Grubb
> This is the water flowing back out at higher velocity over the top
> slower moving normal cross currents.
Thank you!
The maximum shift from what will inevitably be known informally as the
Nuclear Quake, was some 55 meters, per the person who tweeted a link
to this preliminary report from March 13th:
http://www.geol.ucsb.edu/faculty/ji/big_earthquakes/2011/03/0311_v2/Honshu_2.html
It's way above my head, but certainly there are people here who would
appreciate it, if they haven't already seen it or others along the
same lines.
Barb
----------
"I am standing on the treshold about to enter a room. It is a
complicated
business. In the first place I must shove against an atmosphere
pressing
with a force of fourteen pounds on every square inch of my body. I
must
make sure of landing on a plank travelling at twenty miles a second
round
the sun - a fraction of a second too early or too late, the plank
would be
miles away. I must do this whilst hanging from a round planet, head
outward in space, and with a wind of aether blowing at no one knows
how
many miles a second through every instice of my body."
-- Arthur S. Eddington in 'The nature of the Physical World' (1928),
quoted at http://http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/2_2.html#subindex
Belba Grubb
including mention of paleo-tsunamis: http://bit.ly/f7seHe
(Hat tip to Chris Rowan for the retweet.)
Barb
----------
"If there is magic on the planet, it is contained in Water."
-- Loren Eiseley
Weatherlawyer
>
> "I am standing on the treshold about to enter a room. It is a
> complicated
> business. In the first place I must shove against an atmosphere
> pressing
> with a force of fourteen pounds on every square inch of my body. I
> must
> make sure of landing on a plank travelling at twenty miles a second
> round
> the sun - a fraction of a second too early or too late, the plank
> would be
> miles away. I must do this whilst hanging from a round planet, head
> outward in space, and with a wind of aether blowing at no one knows
> how
> many miles a second through every instice of my body."
>
> quoted at
>
> http://http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/2_2.html#subindex
Let's hope he didn't bump into anyone coming the other way.
Hey, maybe that's how his friend discovered E=MC^2?
Weatherlawyer
> Yikes.
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709850
The first thing to do is to rush out while it's still going on andnot
get hit by a tile from a low roof.
All this is a direct result of WW 2.
Prior to the devastation bombing raids made, burning thousands to
death in each air-raid, the houses were made of wood with paper walls
and thatched roofs.
Today good old fashioned capitalism ensures the very best of
conditions for those responsible:
"...one report said ship owners were asking $100,000 a day for spot
Liquified Natural Gas tankers, market sources said no deals had been
done at this rate. Fees were around $70,000/d before the quake..."
> http://www.petroleum-economist.com/default.asp?Page=14&PUB=279&SID=728055&ISS=25762
So now you know where your hard earned relief effort is going to end
up.
<Cynic? Moi?>
nos...@nospam.invalid
> All this is a direct result of WW 2.
I blame Godzilla.
Belba Grubb
> "Weatherlawyer" <weatherlaw...@gmail.com> wrote...
> > All this is a direct result of WW 2.
>
> I blame Godzilla.
Would you believe a result of decisions made in the late 1800s?
http://www.itworld.com/business/140626/legacy-1800s-leaves-tokyo-facing-blackouts
(h/t to Wired at http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/tech-legacy-tokyo/
)
Barb
-----------
"The Fukushima situation has exposed a grave danger. But it isn't
radiation, it's the poor state of science education."
-- Christopher Jones, a tweet on March 18, 2011. http://twitter.com/#!/cbryanjones
Also, http://twitpic.com/4anm58 Good morning, Japan!
Belba Grubb
h/t Suw #japaneq retweeted by Chris Rowan
Barb
Belba Grubb
Net to describe some of the more regrettable coverage of this event.
Seems to me that as a good countermeasure some good news should be
highlighted, too. This may or may not fall into that category.
I haven't been able to find any news about this 6.1 earthquake...
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc00026q2.php
...affecting operations to restore power to the troubled Fukushima
Daichi complex. While nowhere near the range of the big shock, that
had to result in some serious shaking, as close as it was and
relatively shallow; if indeed it didn't affect things seriously, in
this context, then the Japanese, and humanity in general, is certainly
doing something right.
If it did cause trouble, anybody have news?
Barb
-----------
"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish
that He didn't trust me so much."
-- Mother Teresa, quoted at http://www.quotegarden.com/adversity.html
nos...@nospam.invalid
>A new term (to me, anyway), "disaster porn," is floating around the
> Net to describe some of the more regrettable coverage of this event.
Barb, I'm not sure I follow your comment. Can you give an example
of what you consider regrettable coverage? Human tragedy aside it's
a goldmine for researchers. How often do random helicopters with
cameras stumble on an oncoming tsunami?
Belba Grubb
> Barb, I'm not sure I follow your comment. Can you give an example
> of what you consider regrettable coverage?
In a word, Drudge, although that's just one example of many. (In his
favor, of course, Drudge doesn't pretend to be anything but a tabloid,
so he's just being consistent there.) In 25 words or less, any story,
heavy on how bad things were, that left you as uninformed as when you
first read it.
More to the point would be examples of what I've found offering
consistently good coverage in terms of information and human interest
stories. It's just my opinion, of course.
Top of the list of online news sources regularly checked for
information would be, in the early stages, the Twitter feed of
TimeOutTokyo and the sources for more information (particularly the
Washington Post link) at their website, as well as the website of the
English-language version of the "Japan Times."
As things have become less urgent--if one just follows "disaster porn"-
style coverage, that will not make any sense, but it's true--ToT
resumed its regular coverage of Tokyo for the most part. The "Japan
Times" continues to be up there both for information and human
interest coverage.
For straight information and overview, there is this page at
LaInformacion.com (Spanish) that I check daily, although today was the
first time they didn't update it:
http://noticias.lainformacion.com/catastrofes-y-accidentes/terremoto/al-minuto-situacion-de-los-reactores-en-la-central-de-fukushima_MfJdImMH4gA5fEmof5Jd75/
Also, it is very wonderful that Google Translate handles Japanese so
easily, especially if one is also using Chrome, although cut-and-paste
from something in another browser is just as good. This function
makes it possible for non-Japanese-speakers to look up local news
reports and comments.
From a layperson standpoint, I have also really begun to appreciate
the USGS Pager Impact maps for some of these aftershocks near and in
Japan, including the one I mentioned yesterday, but more recent ones,
too.
Barb
-------------
http://www.bouletcorp.com/blogen/bonus/Japan.jpg
Belba Grubb
Matt_Alt: "Translated RT: 'See, foreigners? Japan is getting back to
normal!' @lynmock 面白いから誰か外人に「これが平和な日本の日常のシーンだ」っつってこの写真を送るんだ http://j.mp/g7VK2h
:-)
Belba Grubb II
-- possibly $1.2 billion, with nuclear damage excluded, but that is
with "a higher than usual degree of uncertainty":
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703858404576214010231936914.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Also, they are starting to include estimates in the death counts now,
and currently it is over 20,000. This hit in an area with relatively
low population density.
Barb
---------
"How many times had those awful words - 'I know what I'm doing' - been
uttered throughout history as prelude to disaster? "
-- Christopher Buckley