Devastation

God help him. The poor sod.

God Bless Japan. Everyone will be saved and brought back to their normal lives soon. This scene reminds us about something ... war-zone or powerful mother-nature catastrophe. Japan, gambarei.

Yeah I said it before, it looks like the aftermath on Hiroshima. Feel so terribly sorry for these people.

Just heard on the news that the quake was bigger than a 9.0. But they couldnt actually scale it as they dont go higher than 9 or something. Anyone know those details?

Anyone have information on where to donate clothes etc?

Jesus! Unbelievable! Tsunami is the most horrible one for catastrophe. Must remember it ever

@Papiguilio: The quake has indeed been re-evaluated to be 9.0. But there have been larger quakes, a 9.5 in Chile in 1960, which to date the most powerful earthquake ever recorded on Earth.

Rest of Japan is okay and normal,they should help out big in northeast Honshu,Sendai,Fukushima,Miyagi and all places.

Quakes is normal,on earth. The Earth has fault lines.

Japan Island have many fault lines running close to them. Japan's history has even bigger loss of lives in quakes,in past.Japan has been preparin for a big quake ,for years. Congrats to to them casualty is very low,compared with past quakes.

Time to move on,start gettin things back to normal and build very new high tech nuclear plants,that are quake resistant. Time for also ,for people of japan,especially at sea coast,to to react faster and be more prepared Tsunamis.

correct...to react faster and be more prepared,for Tsunamis.

rajakumar.

100% agree. But the major damage came from the tsunamis.

Stats show those came in with waves of up to 10metres (30foot) and at speeds of around 500kph(like a jetliner)

Combine the Tsunami with a 8.8(9.0 as suggested) quake and no-one can prepare or plan for that sufficiently(you can only make a weld so strong, etc).

Japan right now needs to get past it and THAN we can look at how to improve things(if possible).

People trying to blame Tepco, etc are NOT helping and are NOT what is needed now.

Just my view.

From 1963 to 1998, there has 358,214 earthquake events near all faultlines. Quakes are part of earth ways,to release pressure from high levels of heat pressure ,at center of earth ,which is very high in heat temperatures.

The quake itself wasn't very damaging, it was under the sea. Ground shaking was less than half of that in the Hanshin earthquake of '95. It was the tsunami that has caused havoc. Very hard to prepare for tsunamis, we are still learning about them.

Surreal picture. I am not sure how I would react if I living there and saw everything I knew wiped out.

God bless.

Stats show those came in with waves of up to 10metres (30foot) and at speeds of around 500kph(like a jetliner.

small quibble, but important point: in deep water they are just cm deeps with huge wavelenghts and tremendously high speeds, but as they hit shallow water they slow down immensely the wavelength shortens up and correspondingly the wave height increases. Mid ocean - fast and flat At the shore - slower and huge.

As for that photo. Damn, devastate just doesnt cut it....

annihilate: to reduce to utter ruin or nonexistence; destroy utterly.

Sadly such a drastic word sums it up.

I live in a remote part of Iran and I would like to express my condolences about the earthquake in Japan .I believe in Japanese hero people and I am sure that Japan soon come back to its normal living. This large scale disaster wants to test Japanese people strength and I am sure that Japanese people will come out victorious. I think that Japan is proud of humanity and must remain eternal.

I hope for better times for Japan. It is a fantastic country with fantastic people. I hope that their pain and suffering end soon.The Japaneese spirit will never die. They are a great example to the world of facing their difficulties with resolve. We all pray for the Japaneese People here in the US and Europe.

From what I heard from news reports, residents have been warned about the tsunamis as early as a few days before, and half hour after the first quake occured. But yet so many lives was lost to the tsunamis (not to the quakes tough. This, kudos to Japan's excellent building codes). This makes me wonder, could it be because the residents had not anticipated the tsunamis to be so powerful or high enough for them to go to high grounds for shelter, but instead stayed home thinking it would be safe? (I saw a video clip of a house half submerged, floating along with the tsunami and lots of other debris too. There was a female looking out from the window, and when she realised that she was being filmed, she moved out of view. Didn't she want to be saved? Don't know whether she was subsequently saved. No news report on this incident).

Sorry, I am rambling here. It's just that I can't figure out how could there be such a high casualty when appropriate tsunami warnings had been out. Whereas, unlike the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami there were no warnings given.

Would anyone care to shed some light or comment on this? Thanks.

sqwak.

There was a quake and a tsunami warning a few days prior = separate and unrelated. You only get the warning if you are close to something that can relay the warning.

Not sure what point you are trying to make?

But don't think you can fully understand what happened unless you are here and experienced it, as many posters did. As well as the good stuff we see around us.

I was in Rikuzen-takata in May 2006. It was such a beautiful little place. So was Onagawa. Can't stop crying.

There goes any last beliefs I ever had in a loving god.

I can't see why anyone would bother praying to any higher power when any and all - regardless of religious beliefs - can be completely wiped out within minutes.

In the '90s, I lived and taught in Ofunato, the city next to Rikuzentakata. In Rikuzentakata, I remember: Mr. Tanaka's drivers' ed. school, doing the annual bike race along the streets, Johnny's Jazz Bar, Akari-chan's (one of my 4-year-old students) mother's gasoline stand...

A few of our students came from Rikuzentakata. In the years after teaching, I have always thought about what became of the students. Did they go to university? Did they stay in the city? Did they get married? Did they have families of their own?

Now it pains me to have to wonder whether or not they have passed away.

@sqwak science isn't advanced enough to tell the difference between an isolated earthquake and a foreshock. with hindsight we can call some of these events foreshocks. small and moderate earthquakes happen regularly and there is no certain way of telling which ones will lead to a great earthquake.

secondly, all coastal areas have regular rehearsals of evacuation for a tsunami. however, the time to react can be very short depending on the location of the epicentre in relation to the coast. in some cases it will literally be minutes before the tsunami hits. even with an efficient tsunami warning system, it won't be possible to evacuate some areas.

A few of our students came from Rikuzentakata. In the years after teaching, I have always thought about what became of the students. Did they go to university? Did they stay in the city? Did they get married? Did they have families of their own? Now it pains me to have to wonder whether or not they have passed away.

We can share our wealth and social responsibilities to others in need. But we also care more to people close to us, demonstrating by our sense of responsibility and conscience. If you love someone, you had better do something now, rather than waiting and talking - it is too late.

@sqwak there was a tsunami warning, but this tsunami was extremely fast: it came after 1 minute. Imagine that all the elderly could not evacuate in that short time

Zenny

But don't think you can fully understand what happened unless you are here and experienced it, as many posters did.

I was not in Japan when this disaster happened (not going to lie that I there when it happened). But I do appreciate the devastations that followed. I would not want to experience them for real, for sure. But I do care about what has happened.

I had a lot of faith in Japan's quake/tsunami safety systems that it would help cut down on the number of casualties and had not expected to read that the death toll might reach 10,000. This baffled me. So I surmised that it could be mainly due to the tsunamis not the Quake. Hence, I was looking for an answer here from posters who might be interested to fill me in as to why so many (anticipated) tsunami casualties.

Zenny, please, like many not living in Japan right now I do empathise with the Japanese with what is happening there right now. So please do not say that we won't understand. Why do you think that we stayed glued to the tv the whole day and night just tuned in to follow this disaster, or that ex tsunami victims in Indonesia, Sri Lanka or Thailand (news reported), were crying as they watched this disaster in Japan on their TV? The world over, do care.

You said : There was a quake and a tsunami warning a few days prior = separate and unrelated. You only get the warning if you are close to something that can relay the warning.

Here is my point.... let's take Sendai and a few other close neighbours for example. Weren't they close to the Quake Epicentre or the Tsunami Relay Station/Systems to be forewarned of the tsunamis, and quickly "run" to safety. Or was it that there was only a 1/2 hour window of time (after the Sendai Quake) for escape to high ground which might not be enough time to do so? Hence such high anticipated casualties?

What do you think could have happened?

As well as the good stuff we see around us.

Could you please share info on this too?

Thanks. BTW, my post here is to know and to learn, not to bash.

@sqwak the tsunami hit after one minute after the warning, it was extremely fast. hence the high number of casualties

rurika, timeon and Zenny,

Thanks for your input. Yes, I've got it figured out. Thanks again.

My beautiful prefecture :(

Don't think the victims'( the ones who survived ) lives will ever be the same again. Let's hope Japan shows the world her true greatness by taking care of them after the headlines are off the front page.

Again I wish to make the point that many people are going to become sick, permanently homeless, totally disenfranchised if they don't know how to save themselves. Disseminating information on how the citizens can help themselves means that many less that the government has to help. Thus making the job of putting the damaged areas back to a normal life that much easier. So far I have seen no articles in any Japanese newspaper on how to help yourself, and many reports on people waiting on someone else to rescue them.