Earthquake update
First, I am ok.
I can’t believe how many aftershocks there are. Lots of things fell over in my house. It’s still shaking slowly between aftershocks. I was in the supermarket at the time and shelves fell over. Everybody ran outside and I held on to a bicycle post. I think the earthquake magnitude was upgraded to 8.9. Headed home. No real damage but lots of things fell over and hard to walk in the house. The neighbors keep going back inside and then going out again when an aftershock hits. By far the strongest earthquake I ever experienced. Airports closed. Trains stopped. Landline and cell phones stopped. But the power is on and the Internet is working! I’m probably crazy to be indoors. I’ll go out again if there’s another aftershock.
doug
Here’s an update:Tokyo Power’s Fukushima nuclear power plant is unable to generate coolant in two power plants. The government declared a nuclear emergency which could lead to a nuclear disaster at the power plant and urged people in the area to remain indoors and stay calm. There have been “no reports of radiation leak.” Not exactly reassuring.This is the largest earthquake in Japan’s history, at least for the last 140 years since they started keeping records.The trains in the Tokyo area are stopped for the day and everybody is stuck wherever they are and can’t get home. There is massive tsunami damage. Phones and cell phones and airports are closed. Sendai Airport is submerged below water.In the Tokyo area 3.9 households are without power. Amazingly, I still have power and Internet, but the grid is becoming overloaded because of the shut-down of the nuclear power plants, so I may be out of touch by morning. If you don’t hear from me I’m probably ok, but just without power.The main hit area is Miyagi Prefecture, which is a couple of hundred kilometers away. The magnitude was 8.8 and on the Japanese scale it was 7 out of 7. There have been many aftershocks and my house is shaking about every 15 or 20 minutes.I was at a supermarket when it hit, and shelves started falling over. People ran out of the supermarket and I had to hold on to a bicycle post to stop from falling over. I was able to reach my 92 year old friend, Dave, by FaceTalk on our iPhones because luckily his power and Internet are working too.The government says aftershocks are not slowing down.Anyway, if you don’t hear from me today earthquake-wise I’m probably ok, but the power might fail.doug
Doug, Once again, be safe. Were you able to contact Kathy and mom? I know there is little I can do, but if you need something please let me know. Love you. Mimi and Muttle
Hi, Muttle. Can you imagine NOT being able to reach Cathy on the phone? :)I got her through an Internet phone actually because the regular lines are down. Here is an update. Tokyo Power’s Fukushima nuclear power plant is unable to generate coolant in two power plants. The government declared a nuclear emergency which could lead to a nuclear disaster at the power plant and urged people in the area to remain indoors and stay calm. There have been “no reports of radiation leak.” Not exactly reassuring.This is the largest earthquake in Japan’s history, at least for the last 140 years since they started keeping records.The trains in the Tokyo area were stopped for the day and everybody was stuck wherever they were and could not get home, including my roommate. So he finally got a message through that he was spending the night with co-workers at a bar. There is massive tsunami damage. Phones and cell phones and airports are closed. Sendai Airport is submerged below water.In the Tokyo area 3.9 households are without power. Amazingly, I still have power and Internet, but the grid is becoming overloaded because of the shut-down of the nuclear power plants, so I may be out of touch at some point. The main hit area is Miyagi Prefecture, which is a couple of hundred kilometers away. The magnitude was 8.8 and on the Japanese scale it was 7 out of 7. There have been many aftershocks and my house is shaking about every 15 or 20 minutes.I was at a supermarket when it hit, and shelves started falling over. People ran out of the supermarket and I had to hold on to a bicycle post to stop from falling over. I got home and there was no real damage, just lots of things knocked over. I’ll clean up the mess when the shaking dies down. I was able to reach my 92 year old friend, Dave, who lives on the other side of Tokyo, by FaceTalk on our iPhones because luckily his power and Internet are working too.This morning amazingly the power is still on but I got woken up by aftershocks every 15 minutes through the night. Another big aftershock as I’m writing this!doug
Because of the explosion and all whatever else going on at the Fukushima nuclear power plant they asked everybody to please cooperate in conserving energy, so I shut of the main things using energy in my house – the heaters. doug
Here is an update on my status, since it is more likely than yesterday that I might experience a power failure.Tokyo Power’s Fukushima nuclear power plant is unable to generate coolant in two power plants and there was an explosion a few hours ago and they are evacuating a 10 km radius now (up from 3 km earlier), but people on the Internet are saying 30 km – 50 km is safest. Information is vague, but apparently radiation levels at the gate have gone from 8 x normal a few hours ago to 90 x normal and cesium has been detected outside indicating a meltdown in progress.Tokyo is 260 km south the nuclear power plant, so I should be ok, and prevailing winds are, I believe, north.I still have power and Internet, but the grid is becoming overloaded because of the shut-down of the nuclear power plants. They just put out an appeal for energy conservation and so I shut off the main things using power here – my heaters. If you don’t hear from me I’m probably ok, but just without power.There were many aftershocks and my house was shaking about every 15 or 20 minutes for about 18 hours, but that seems to have calmed down now to aftershocks just every few hours.doug
The government just increased the evacuation area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant from 10 km to 20 km.doug
Aftershocks had slowed down, but we’ve had three in the last 1/2 hour, including one large one that was a 5 on the Japanese scale of 1-7.doug
Now there is something going on with the #3 nuclear reactor in Fukushima. Still unclear what. The one with the explosion yesterday was the #1 nuclear reactor.A few more large-ish aftershocks this morning.I think the government is finally getting to the worse-hit areas in Miyagi now.doug