Earth Science
Amid scenes of unimaginable carnage, desperate survivors were today battling for survival as the official death toll soared above 3,300.
Aerial photos taken over Japan have revealed the scale of devastation across dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes and businesses. Hover over each satellite photo to view the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami.
Until we see whether they get the pumps running again, or emergency power becomes available, lets not panic about this. It sounds like they are doing all the right things I would expect in such an emergency. The situation is serious. But so is a tsunami that wipes out a couple of towns with over 77,000 people gone in just one of those towns. The radiation isn't a problem in this yet. Let the Japanese military and civil defense folks do their jobs, and help them out wherever we can. That is all we can hope to do anyway.
A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline Monday, overwhelming crematoriums, exhausting supplies of body bags and adding to the spiraling humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis after the massive earthquake and tsunami. Millions of people faced a fourth night without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures along the northeast coast devastated by Friday's disasters. Meanwhile, a third reactor at a nuclear power plant lost its cooling capacity and its fuel rods were fully exposed, raising fears of a meltdown. The stock market plunged over the likelihood of huge losses by Japanese industries including big names such as Toyota and Honda.
The following reactions are not ones we'd characterize as "appropriate."
Rescuers spot 60-year-old from Fukushima prefecture clinging to the roof of his home two days after the tsunami struck Live coverage of Japan earthquake and tsunami
Government officials revealed the fate of 9,500 people in the north eastern port of Minamisanriku was still unknown more than 24 hours after the double disaster hit. [Several horribly impressive pictures.]
The director, Kevin McCue, said there had been more than 100 smaller quakes since Friday, but a larger aftershock was likely. ''Normally they happen within days,'' he said. ''The rule of thumb is that you would expect the main aftershock to be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, so you would be expecting a 7.9. Advertisement: Story continues below ''That's a monster again in its own right that is capable of producing a tsunami and more damage.''
The death toll in Japan's earthquake and tsunami will likely exceed 10,000 in one state alone, an official said Sunday, as millions of survivors were left without drinking water, electricity and proper food along the pulverized northeastern coast. "This is Japan's most severe crisis since the war ended 65 years ago...."
appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.
According to officials, at least 1,000 people were killed - including 200 bodies found Sunday along the coast - and 678 were missing in the earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that hit with breathtaking force and speed, sweeping away everything in its path.
"If this accident stops right now it will already be one of the three worst accidents we have ever had at a nuclear power plant in the history of nuclear power,"
NOAA energy map shows the intensity of the tsunami caused by Japan's magnitude 8.9 earthquake.
"We had an earthquake caused by the Pacific Ocean plate sliding under the Asian plate and as it slides under the Asian plate is pushed up...any time you move the ocean floor up or down you induce a tsunami in the ocean. "Tsunamis travel fast when the ocean is deep they travel slowly when the ocean is shallow. When the ocean is deep, the wave spreads out so you have maybe a foot high wave that's spread out hundreds of miles and it's traveling at literally 500 miles an hour."
Crude prices fell slightly on predictions Japan's energy use would drop in the wake of the disaster, though some analysts said the period could be followed quickly by a rebuilding phase in which the country's energy demand could surge.
The emergency cooling system at a second nuclear reactor at the Fukushima power plant has failed, raising fears of serious accident but officials have said the low radiation levels pose no risk to human health
A municipal official of the town of Futaba in Fukushima prefecture said: ''More than 90% of the houses in three coastal communities have been washed away by tsunami. Looking from the fourth floor of the town hall, I see no houses standing.'' In one of the worst-hit areas of Fukushima prefecture, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out for help, the Kyodo news agency reported. Four trains running in a coastal area of Miyagi and Iwate prefectures are still unaccounted for. In Ibaraki prefecture, north-east of Tokyo, many homes are still without power and there are queues at the few petrol stations that are open, says the BBC's Chris Hogg.
Japanese officials may only have hours to cool reactors that have been disabled by Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami or face a nuclear meltdown....
A dam in Japan's northeast Fukushima prefecture broke and homes were washed away, Kyodo news reported on Saturday, after the biggest earthquake in the nation's history wreaked death and havoc.
Two seismologists quoted in an article on the website Life's Little Mysteries (a sister site of Space.com) said that just as the moon's gravity has an effect on Earth tides, it can also have a minimal effect on the land in what is known as "land tides" or "solid Earth tides." Ultimately, ocean tides and land tides can have an effect upon seismic activity. [Wow, gravity of a body in close proximity and 1/6th the size of our planet might tug on the delicate, cracked, plates and sub-plates floating on the core of our world, which might even trigger some event that was about to pop anyway? WHAT A SURPRISE!]
TV weatherman John Kettley said: "A moon can't cause a geological event like an earthquake, but it will cause a difference to the tide. If that combines with certain weather conditions then that could cause a few problems for coastal areas." [WHAT? NO EFFECT? WADR, you asked a WEATHERMAN? Let's ask some seismic specialists instead!]
largest in the country's recorded history - and the fifth-largest to hit the world since 1900. It triggered a giant tsunami in the Pacific Ocean, sweeping away boats, cars, homes and people. At least 60 people have been confirmed dead as of Friday morning, and the entire U.S. West Coast braces for the aftershocks of the disaster.
Most astonishing was footage of a tsunami rolling in, swamping the land and causing boats to smack into an overpass. ... a wall of water put at 10 to 13 feet high, rushing in... death toll in one village alone was 300... boat with 100 aboard had been reported swept away.... scenes of refinery fires, shaken offices, shattered glass, cracked walls and stranded passengers... another disaster could be looming because the area around a nuclear power plant had been evacuated and that a leak was possible... "Most nuclear power plants in Japan … are able to withstand an earthquake of about 7 or 7.2," she said. "Something this big, an 8.9, even an 8.9 offshore, that certainly is going to raise some alarms." She said that was the "gray zone" of what a nuclear plant could withstand. ... the rate of earthquakes around the world could increase because such a large quake causes distress in the Earth's crust. ...Japan will feel earthquakes for years and decades to come because the fault line could be 400 miles long.
* One train is derailed and another missing in Miyagi prefecture, Kyodo says. - Up to 300 bodies found in Sendai city, domestic news agency Jiji says. - Some 3,000 residents living near a nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture, north of Tokyo, have been told to evacuate the area, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano tells reporters. - Government says no radiation leaking; evacuation is precaution after reactor cooling malfunction. - Bank of Japan to hold policy meeting on Monday, will announce decision same day, cutting short scheduled Monday-Tuesday meeting. - First signs of tsunami begin to appear on shores of Hawaii.
Japanese refiners Cosmo Oil and JX Nippon Oil and Energy shut their refineries in the eastern part of the country following a massive earthquake that struck the area on Friday afternoon. Several power plants and ports in the Tokyo Bay area were also closed... Japan's Tohoku Electric Power Company shut its three nuclear reactors at its Onagawa power plant while a Tokyo Electric Power Company spokesman said it had shut seven units at two of its nuclear power plants in Fukushima prefecture... Key ports in the Tokyo Bay area also suspended operations... The quake unleashed a 10 meter-high tsunami that tossed ships inland and sparked fears that destructive waves could hit across the Pacific Ocean...
The quake that hit Japan was a magnitude 8.9, the biggest earthquake to hit the country since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s, and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake struck at a depth of six miles, about 80 miles off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles northeast of Tokyo. A tsunami warning was extended to a number of Pacific, Southeast Asian and Latin American nations, including Japan, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Chile. In the Philippines, authorities ordered an evacuation of coastal communities.
Republicans are raising questions about why the EPA apparently dismissed an analyst's report questioning the science behind global warming.
The Democrat-led House pressed Thursday for enough votes to pass landmark legislation that would combat global warming by forcing U.S. companies to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions, expanding expensive renewable-energy sources and trimming consumers' choices on new light bulbs and hot tubs. [WHERE'S G BUSH WHEN WE REALLY NEED REGEIME CHANGE?]
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) slowed Democrats' attempt to pass a sweeping climate-change legislation Friday evening, reading page-by-page through a 300-page Democratic amendment before allowing a roll call vote.... "...the House is going to spend a whopping five hours debating the most profound piece of legislation to come to this floor in 100 years. And the chairman has the audacity to drop a 300-plus page amendment in the hopper at 3:09 a.m. this morning. And so I would ask my colleagues, don't you think the American people expect us to understand what's in this bill before we vote on it?"
wind speeds across the country have decreased by an average of .5 percent to 1 percent per year since 1973.... more in the East than in the West, and more in the Northeast and the Great Lakes.... [Researchers "think that global warming will cause lighter winds" but there's no mention in this article of the range of variability, shorter-term or longer-term trending, or the margin of error. But of three possible causes, "There are some good theoretical reasons to think that global warming will cause lighter winds"... yeah... like US Gov funding? Oh, pardon my cynical and suspicious nature....]
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