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9.0 Earthquake strikes Japan


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Heartbreaking article. The children wait.

So far the official death tool has hit 5,692 with another 9,522 people missing, according to The National Police Agency. But there were very real fears today that the statistics were a terrible underestimate of those who perished in the tsunami.

Across the country some 434,000 people have been made homeless and are living in shelters.

Ken Joseph, an associate professor at Chiba University, is in Ishinomaki with the Japan Emergency Team.

He told the Evening Standard: 'I think the death toll is going to be closer to 100,000 than 10,000.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366898/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-30-children-sit-silent-classroom-parents-vanish.html#ixzz1Gv2laTTY

Makes you wonder what the final count will be. The death toll and number of missing are BOTH going up.

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Makes you wonder what the final count will be. The death toll and number of missing are BOTH going up.

I posted this the first day. Despite the slow rise in the totals I don't see anything that would make me change my prediction.

Sadly, I would be amazed if the final toll is less than 25,000 dead and probably a lot more. Lots of elderly, children and others that can not get away when something of this magnitude strikes any urban area without warning. Remember they only had minutes from the time of the quake until the first wave hit.

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I have to agree, Chad Myers is an idiot. His "thousand fatalities" figure is just retarded. The death toll is likely into the tens of thousands. Given how densely populated Japan is, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being over 100,000.

Said this back on Saturday morning.

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Couple of things, first it appears the critieria being used to list someone as "missing" is a bit more stringent than say in this country. Even though 10,000 people were described as missing in the press from certain communities they were not listed as such in the official updates.

That combined with the fact that especially in the farther northeastern areas those are fairly close knit communities whose residents are less likely to disperse and go to a variety of locations but stay together in a limited number of shelters may mean that a larger numbers of people listed as missing may indeed perished.

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Enough evidence is available now to tell us that at some geographically enhanced locations the tsunami was at least 35-40' high, the highest values being north of Sendai in Iwate Prefecture. CNN has video from NHK showing how the seawall falled to protect Taro, a village just north of Miyako. The seawall is 10m (33' high). And the report suggests at a minimum the water got 8-10' above that.

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Enough evidence is available now to tell us that at some geographically enhanced locations the tsunami was at least 35-40' high, the highest values being north of Sendai in Iwate Prefecture. CNN has video from NHK showing how the seawall falled to protect Taro, a village just north of Miyako. The seawall is 10m (33' high). And the report suggests at a minimum the water got 8-10' above that.

Do you have a link to that video? I was wondering just how bad it was in Taro, since they had it so bad in 1896 and 1933. I was wondering just how badly the seawall was overtopped. It sounds like it was a worst possible situation for that little town. I have seen a lot from Miyako itself(main town), but nothing from Taro.

And that town was held up as a good example of 'tsunami protection measures' in both print articles and TV programs. :(

I can imagine that since the wall held up against the 1960 Chilean earthquake tsunami, that hardly anyone evacuated(even if they had the time).

*edit* nevermind-I found it on CNN. ugh. :(

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I can imagine that since the wall held up against the 1960 Chilean earthquake tsunami, that hardly anyone evacuated(even if they had the time).

That wall (and the wall protecting the residential portions of Crescent City, CA) are perfectly good against any distant tsunami you want to throw against it, I'm sure - no hope against a local tsunami from a great megathrust earthquake; it wasn't necessarily a waste of effort because distant tsunamis and smaller earthquakes on the Japan Trench are so much more common.

Honestly I just think there wasn't time to evacuate - some areas apparently saw the first wave within 7-11 minutes of the quake, rather than people just trusting in the seawall.

I'm sure a Cascadia megathrust tsunami will overtop the Crescent City wall and destroy the whole town.

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That wall (and the wall protecting the residential portions of Crescent City, CA) are perfectly good against any distant tsunami you want to throw against it, I'm sure - no hope against a local tsunami from a great megathrust earthquake; it wasn't necessarily a waste of effort because distant tsunamis and smaller earthquakes on the Japan Trench are so much more common.

Honestly I just think there wasn't time to evacuate - some areas apparently saw the first wave within 7-11 minutes of the quake, rather than people just trusting in the seawall.

I'm sure a Cascadia megathrust tsunami will overtop the Crescent City wall and destroy the whole town.

If they rebuild at all in Taro, they should just rebuild the port area only, and relocate the rest of the town slightly inland on higher ground, and leave the flatland area for farming or open ground, parkland, etc. There is just no other solution-they can't just keep going through this every 50 years or so. At least they have the higher ground nearby to build on.

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Pretty sure it's not asphalt, just black silt on top of the pavement which had eroded in some spots.

You can see erosion channels in the silt starting at :36

This. Add-on: Do you really think cars would be able to sink THAT FAR through asphalt from a few minutes of shaking?

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This. Add-on: Do you really think cars would be able to sink THAT FAR through asphalt from a few minutes of shaking?

Yep, it's definitely liquefaction. If whole buildings can sink many feet into the ground or even fall over on their sides due to liquefaction then it is definitely not a stretch for cars to sink that small amount. When ground liquifies like that it becomes the consistency of jello and cars don't get supported too well by jello even when covered by asphalt.

Steve

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From the BBC:

0531: The Yomiuri reports that last week's tsunami reached heights of around 20 metres on the Sanriku coast, according to investigations by the Port and Airport Research Institute. The Sanriku coastline is jagged, a factor which apparently increased the height of the tsunami. Among their investigations, researchers found wreckage on top of a three-storey building near the ocean

I'm sure a lot of people suspected that given some of the pictures, but 20m is insane.

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From the BBC:

0531: The Yomiuri reports that last week's tsunami reached heights of around 20 metres on the Sanriku coast, according to investigations by the Port and Airport Research Institute. The Sanriku coastline is jagged, a factor which apparently increased the height of the tsunami. Among their investigations, researchers found wreckage on top of a three-storey building near the ocean

I'm sure a lot of people suspected that given some of the pictures, but 20m is insane.

You always hear the horror stories on the end of the world programs talking about 100ft waves or larger, it definitely is more believable after seeing this. I really couldn't imagine being a part of this, how lucky some of these survivors must feel just that their building wasn't swept away and that the location they picked to lived saved their lives while their neighbors were swept away. Unbelievable stuff especially that most recent video.

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My apologies if this has been posted already. I just found it last night -- perhaps the most impressive close-up encounter with the tsunami I have seen yet. Every minute you think it has gotten as bad as it's going to get, it just keeps coming, and coming:

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