Currently viewing the tag: “Earthquake”
So says Pastor Rick Joyner, as America’s Christianists continue to out-do each other in the Crazy Olympics. The gold medal still belongs to Cindy Jacobs. So far.
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Written by Juliana Rincón Parra
Boing Boing blog points us towards a video that shows us the programming in 6 main TV channels in Japan during the Earthquake: sadly, most channels didn't even bother to noticeably show the earthquake warning, opting instead for continuing with the advertisements. TimeOutTokyo commented: “This is why we watch NHK.”
The latest casualty estimates out of Japan are quite disheartening:
The terrible toll of Japan’s double disaster became clearer today as it emerged as many as 25,000 people could be dead.
As rescue crews trawled through mile after mile of tsunami-stricken wasteland, officials from the coastal town of Ishinomaki confirmed that 10,000 of their citizens were missing.
The unimaginable figure is the same given as in the town of Minamisanriku, also in Miyagi state, which lost around half its population when it was razed to the ground by the 20 foot high wall of water.
So far the official death tool has hit 4,340 with another 9,083 people missing. But there were very real fears tonight 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.
And that doesn’t take into account, of course, any longer term casualties resulting from radiation exposure.
Each day the news from Japan gets more grim, in terms of the death toll and the nuclear power plant crisis. Here’s the latest grim news: the death toll could reach 25,000:
The death toll in the double disaster to hit Japan is expected to reach 25,000, according to reports.
The number of those who lost their lives following the earthquake and tsunami currently stands at 3,676, while those missing is more than 8,000.
However, Kyodo News said the mayor of the town of Ishinomaki on the coast said the number of missing could hit 10,000.
The 10,000 figure is the same given for the missing in the port town of Minamisanriku, also in Miyagi state, which lost around half its population when it was razed to the ground by the tsunami.
Across the country some 434,000 people have been made homeless and are living in shelters.
Here’s terrifying video of the tsunami hitting Sendai airport:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Japan is still trying to figure out the extent of the massive human toll of the tragedy that has befallen that country. The toll will reach biblical proportions. But in a few weeks they will need to begin charting plans to rebuild. Japan’s financial house in not in great shape, so they will need to borrow capital, plenty of it. But how much will be available? There is also speculation in Japan that to finance the rebuilding, Tokyo will sell off a portion of its huge holdings of U.S. Treasuries to cover the cost.
Guess what? There is almost $ 1.8 trillion in US Treasury debt maturing this year. Fully 50% of American debt comes due in the next three years. Governments such as China have already indicated that they are will interested in buying U.S. debt than in the past. And if Japan sells off a portion of its US debt? We need to be concerned about the human toll right now. But pretty soon we will need to confront the reality that the Japanese catastrophe and the American debt crisis may collide on international financial markets. It’s just another reason we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and get our fiscal house in order. Japan is going to need to borrow heavily because they just got hit by an earthquake and tsunami. What’s our excuse?
Japan is still trying to figure out the extent of the massive human toll of the tragedy that has befallen that country. The toll will reach biblical proportions. But in a few weeks they will need to begin charting plans to rebuild. Japan’s financial house in not in great shape, so they will need to borrow capital, plenty of it. But how much will be available? There is also speculation in Japan that to finance the rebuilding, Tokyo will sell off a portion of its huge holdings of U.S. Treasuries to cover the cost.
Guess what? There is almost $ 1.8 trillion in US Treasury debt maturing this year. Fully 50% of American debt comes due in the next three years. Governments such as China have already indicated that they are will interested in buying U.S. debt than in the past. And if Japan sells off a portion of its US debt? We need to be concerned about the human toll right now. But pretty soon we will need to confront the reality that the Japanese catastrophe and the American debt crisis may collide on international financial markets. It’s just another reason we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and get our fiscal house in order. Japan is going to need to borrow heavily because they just got hit by an earthquake and tsunami. What’s our excuse?
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
American Thinker Blog
The Telegraph has a report of the damages to Japan as a consequence of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami to date:
2,414 – Number of people confirmed dead.
10,000 – Likely final death toll figure is set to reach beyond that mark.
15,000 – Number of people unaccounted for.
50 – Number of Britons missing, presumed dead.
550,000 – Evacuated from their homes since the quake struck on Friday.
More at the link.
Much of the media attention in the West right now is being focused on the ongoing dramas of the nuclear reactors that have been affected by the quake and tsunami. Germany has ordered that its seven nuclear reactors placed into service before 1980 be taken offline and it’s unclear what their fate will be. There’s a certain level of panic setting in worldwide over nuclear power at the moment (particularly among elected officials). Even here in relatively tectonically stable Illinois there’s nervousness.
In Japan the concern may be well-founded. The amount of radiation that has been released there is enough that it will be of concern for years to come. And Japan has been the home to some of the world’s most damaging earthquakes, the most recent quake sure to be listed in that number.
What were Japan’s alternatives? I’m not asking rhetorically; I’m looking for information. It may be that there were alternatives to nuclear power that in hindsight may be looking pretty appealing. Contrariwise, it may be the case that the challenge then as now is to mitigate the risks as much as is possible.
Adam Minter has an interesting dispatch in Foreign Policy about the Chinese people's reaction to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Adam Minter has an interesting dispatch in Foreign Policy about the Chinese people's reaction to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Written by Tomomi Sasaki
OpenStreetMap Foundation Japan is using Ushahidi to map crisis information. Volunteers can submit reports through a form or by tweeting location information along with the hashtags #jishin (earthquake), #j_j_helpme (call for help), #hinan (evacuation), #anpi (safety status), or #311care (medical support). The hashtag for people working on the service is #osmjp.
As predicted, moonbats have wasted no time attempting to exploit the tragedy in Japan by linking it to the nonexistent global warming crisis.
Hours after a massive earthquake rattled Japan, environmental advocates connected the natural disaster to global warming. The president of the European Economic and Social Committee, Staffan Nilsson, issued a statement calling for solidarity in tackling the global warming problem.
“Some islands affected by climate change have been hit,” said Nilsson. “Has not the time come to demonstrate on solidarity — not least solidarity in combating and adapting to climate change and global warming?”
“Mother Nature has again given us a sign that that is what we need to do,” he added.
Maybe Mother Nature will be satisfied if we just throw some virgins down a volcano.
Moonbats quickly took to Twitter to sound off on this latest catastrophic consequence of Global Warming Deniers selfishly using the wrong light bulbs. Some samples collected by Lee Doren of the Competitive Enterprise Institute:
AliceTMBFan said “2 hours of geography earlier talking about Japan has left me thinking… maybe global warming is way more serious then we thought…”
Arbiterofwords tweeted “I’m worried that Japan earthquake, on top of other recent natural ‘disasters’, is a sign we’ve passed point of no return for climate change.”
Tayyclayy noted her frustration by tweeting “An earthquake with an 8.9 magnitude struck Japan… And some say climate change isn’t real?!”
And TeamIanHarding tweeted “While Japan witnessed an earthquake we were talking about the problems that global warming leads to in school. Think. Pray. And change.”
The enviro-kooks at Grist ran a story with the headline “Today’s Tsunami: This Is What Climate Change Looks Like.” But apparently someone pointed out that to anyone outside their liberal amen corner, they sounded like gibbering lunatics. They revised the headline and issued a disclaimer:
The intent of this piece isn’t to attribute today’s tragedy to climate change. Apologies to those whom I misled with the headline.
No, only birdbrains like the tweeters above could be convinced that harmless CO2 causes earthquakes. The intent was to establish a vague link in the murky muddle of sanctimonious bumper sticker slogans that serves the typical liberal for a mind, hyping the true believers a little deeper into an alternate reality where crazed conviction counts for more than fact or reason.
Via StormyBlogger.
On tips from Doug, G. Fox, Air2air, BURNING HOT, and lunaticcringeradio.
Northwest Japan was hit with a massive earthquake just a short time ago, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes, triggering a 13 foot tsunami that violently swept away cars and other objects in its paths and shutting down phone lines and transportation in many parts of the country.
The quake was originally thought to be a 7.9 magnitude on the Richter scale but was later upgraded to 8.9.
There are an estimated 4 million people in Tokyo without power, and Japan’s nuclear plants have been shut down.At least six deaths have been reported, mostly in Fukushima prefecture north of Tokyo, while dozens of injuries were reported in a wide range of areas such as Miyagi Prefecture and central Tokyo, according to the Kyodo Wire.
Tokyo’s major airports halted flights and the city’s trains have been halted, including the shinkansen bullet train service.
This was the fifth largest recorded earthquake since since 1900, according to the U.S. Geological Service, larger than the 7.9-magnitude Tokyo quake in 1923 or the 6.3 trembler that just hit Christchurch, New Zealand.
Written by Scilla Alecci
Tomitamakoto set up an information website in Chinese with news on the earthquake and suggestions on what to do in these circumstances.
The massive 8.9 earthquake that slammed into Japan with a one-two-punch of a mega-powerful tsumani was so potent that it moved Japan’s coastline 8 feet — and shifted the earth’s axis. See the before/after NASA photos above. CNN reports:
The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.
“At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass,” said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).
The temblor, which struck Friday afternoon near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan’s east coast.The quake was the most powerful to hit the island nation in recorded history and the tsunami it unleashed traveled across the Pacific Ocean, triggering tsunami warnings and alerts for 50 countries and territories as far away as the western coasts of Canada, the U.S. and Chile. The quake triggered more than 160 aftershocks in the first 24 hours — 141 measuring 5.0-magnitude or more.
The quake occurred as the Earth’s crust ruptured along an area about 250 miles (400 kilometers) long by 100 miles (160 kilometers) wide, as tectonic plates slipped more than 18 meters, said Shengzao Chen, a USGS geophysicist.
And, to make matters worse, a volcano in Japan has now erupted:
A volcano in southwestern Japan erupted Sunday after nearly two weeks of relative silence, sending ash and rocks up to four kilometres (two and a half miles) into the air, a local official says..
It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked northern areas Friday, unleashing a fierce tsunami and sparking fears that more than 10,000 may have been killed.
The 1,421-metre (4,689-feet) Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range saw its first major eruption for 52 years in January. There had not been any major activity at the site since March 1.
