PBS/Nova just aired a fascinating near hour long documentary on the Tsunami. I feel that's worth viewing if only to gain a better perspective on the science behind the disaster. Here's the link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/japan-killer-quake.html
What I'm curious on, and maybe some of our members in Japan can speak to that, is whether there was any warning at all given beforehand? You would think that with something this big there would be some sort of indication. Even if minutes before, but something. Or was it just totally random?
Japan is also a much more tightly packed country. It doesn't take long to get police/military support from one area to another. I'm sure they have all kinds of support services that started setting up in the affected areas almost immediately.
hey hawken and all others in japan.. wish you all the best and that this turns out as good as in any way possible! These are pictures I haven't seen ever and I can't even imagine how it is to be there. I just can wish you all the best!
People train their whole lives for events like this. From kindergarten kids are put through mock evacuations. Offices are required to carry enough emergency kits for each employee, and train them once a year on evacuation procedures. During the quake, everyone was quite calm around me, even though I was on the street in…
My condolences to everyone! This whole situation is just... unimaginable. An earthquake of 9.0, followed by a tsunami, then the nuclear power problem and now the lack of electricity and the need to feed and to give shelter to the thousands of people that have nowhere to go. No one deserves that, and definitely not Japan so…
often tsunamis are something like 50cm or 1 m high and the tetrapods can handle that with ease. The this that made this one different was the earthquake pushed the americas plate up which forced a wave of (in some places) 10m high rushing back towards to Japan at the same speed as a commercial jet (some 500 mph?) People…
Yea, it's amazing how awesome Japan is handling this situation, very calmly, serious and professional. And it's amazing how they feel like they need to take responsibility like Creation said. Those people working in the reactors trying to save the lives of all those people and keeping the place afloat, I do believe.. are…
They have a pretty elaborate warning system in place, I was hearing about it the day-of, and was very impressed. from http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/03/11/pm-the-effectiveness-of-japans-earlywarning-earthquake-system/ Glad to hear yall are ok over there! Hopefully it will calm down and life can begin…
yep. makes me feel really ashamed of our "western" media, that they have nothing better to do that sensationalist news, which leads people to do stupid things (like buying tons of geiger counters and salt), Then in comparison Japan, the country where people should really worry - everything is calm and rational there instead