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| Massive quake hits Japan; Major tsunami damage in northern Japan | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 11 2011, 02:06 AM (6,583 Views) | |
| yass | Mar 13 2011, 11:53 PM Post #61 |
'night owl'
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Shocked South Africans tell of Japan quake 2011-03-13 10:18 Carel van Renen, a teacher in Tokyo "I was on my way to work in my car. There was no rumbling…everything just started shaking. At first I thought the wheels were falling off. People ran out of their homes and everything shook around me." "When it was over, I drove to the kindergarten where I was to teach and along with the teachers I tried to calm down the children on the playground outside. Just then, the next big tremor came…" "To see the fear on the faces of the adults upset me a bit because the Japanese are 'used' to earthquakes. It is difficult to describe the situation across the whole country. For example, I was unable to sleep because there were another more than 50 tremors." "The shop shelves are becoming emptier…fuel is also running out, so I'm back on my bike." Carina van der Watt and Dr Stephan van der Watt, Tokushima: "Words can't describe it...not even images can. Shortly after the first tremor, we ensured all our emergency supplies were ready. Sendai is completely devastated. The hills there are surrounded by water." "People are trapped and are surviving on melted snow for water. They have to spend another night in fear and insecurity. Some are trapped on the roofs of buildings, in icy water. We were thrown on the floor but not destroyed." Neal Muragan from Johannesburg, in the Nagano Prefecture "I'm ok, but badly shocked. The atmosphere is sombre. The aftershocks keep coming. Two of over 6. We barely sleep, our nerves are shot. Sendai has been destroyed. Japanese officials are extremely well-organised, well-prepared." "There are teams checking the gas and electricity lines. Sorry for the stammering. I'm not sleeping. I'm in tremendous shock." http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Shocked-South-Africans-tell-of-Japan-quake-20110313 |
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| yass | Mar 14 2011, 12:02 AM Post #62 |
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'night owl'
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On Edge of Disaster, Town Reels From Tsunami Takako Koguchi inspected the damage to her inn in the small fishing village of Nakaminato. She was about to celebrate her 78th birthday on Friday when the earthquake and tsunami struck. By MARTIN FACKLER Published: March 12, 2011 NAKAMINATO, Japan — Takako Koguchi turned 78 on Thursday. On Friday, hours before a planned birthday celebration, she saw a wave of black water coursing through the streets of this small fishing town, heading toward her. Just 15 minutes had passed since a devastating earthquake rocked Nakaminato and a broad stretch of the northeastern coast. Mrs. Koguchi rushed to her car, escaping shortly before the swirling, debris-laden water crumpled one of the walls of her small ryokan, or inn, and left a trail of destruction throughout the town. On Saturday, you could smell the effects as much as see it: the air stank of dead fish and the sticky brown mud deposited by the three feet of water that had flowed freely through the roads closest to the ocean. She spent the night in a community center, in freezing temperatures, but went home as soon as she could Saturday. She had not eaten in 24 hours. “People used to come and praise my inn as beautiful,” she said as she tried to clear the silt and fish that blanketed the floor of her inn. “Now look at it. It’s disheartening.” Many hours after the most powerful quake to strike Japan in recorded history hit off the country’s northeastern coast, people here remained on edge. They had spent the night without electricity, running water or working telephones, and aftershocks rocked the area all night Friday and through the day on Saturday. On Sunday, waiting cars stretched for more than half a mile at the few open gas stations in the prefecture, and shoppers lined up in the few open supermarkets. The scenes of destruction were especially frightening because they were far from the worst-hit areas. Nakaminato is on the southern edge of the worst devastation from the 8.9-magnitude quake and the tsunami it spawned, which swept away whole villages farther north. Nakaminato sits about 155 miles south of Sendai, the city that bore much of the brunt of the tsunami. Before the shaking and the waves hit, Nakaminato’s buildings had a worn-out look; the town had been left behind by the country’s industrial buildup and by the young people who headed for thriving cities. The mostly aging population made its living mainly from fishing; the heart of the community was a fishing co-op on the waterfront. On Saturday, the waterfront was battered, and Nakaminato’s residents were surrounded by the signs of a livelihood in tatters. Giant freezers in the co-op were stacked on top of each other, packed against a far wall where the waves had pushed them. Forty-foot fishing boats, tilting in all directions, were piled on top of a long concrete wharf. And the fish, mostly silver and blue bonito, were everywhere, mouths agape. Yukinao Nemoto, a 34-year-old forklift driver, was at the wharf on Saturday, trying to absorb the chaos around him. He was loading a boat on Friday afternoon when he noticed the bottom of the forklift suddenly scraping the ground. The reality that the earth was moving took a moment to set in: the forklift hit the ground because the ground beneath it had sunk eight inches. Mr. Nemoto scanned the water and saw a white line of waves speeding to shore. He jumped off his forklift and ran up a nearby hill, barely beating the waves. “I just dropped everything and ran,” he said. It was unclear if the water that buffeted the town had spilled over the seawall built to keep it out, or had rushed through an opening that the town’s fishing boats passed through each day. The destruction was not limited to the water’s edge. Yukio Kobayashi was on his onion farm when he felt the first tremors radiating from the quake’s center in the Pacific. “I couldn’t stand up; I had to crawl out of my field,” he said, dropping to the ground and showing how he had fled. “And then I saw the tsunami. I could see it pass by.” Mr. Kobayashi, 71, said he felt lucky because the waves hit at low tide. “If it was high tide, the waves would have got me.” He spent the night with about 100 others at an elementary school gymnasium in town, in the dark and the cold, listening to a lone radio for information. He had taken a power generator and a single kerosene space heater to the center, the only source of heat for the people huddled in the gym. No one slept, as aftershocks regularly rattled the building. On Saturday, his fields were coated with mud. “This is the first time in my more than 70 years that something like this has happened,” he said. In another part of Nakaminato, Hiromi and Kimiko Ogawa were in their sushi restaurant, scooping up mud and other debris that filled the building. When the quake hit, they sped off in their car. A day later, their restaurant reeked of seawater and sludge. The giant freezer outside the restaurant used to store food was missing. The second of their cars was stacked on top of a pile of wooden debris. It will be a long time, they said, before the restaurant will reopen. Chiyako Ito said she was in her house when the shaking began. The first tremor was so powerful that Ms. Ito, a 72-year-old rice farmer, was knocked off her feet. As the trembling subsided, she ran outside, only to be knocked off her feet again by an aftershock. As she lay on the ground, she saw the barn collapse on her tractor and two cars, flattening them. But the worst was yet to come. The tsunami waters swept up the river near her farm, stopping just a few yards from her house. “I was paralyzed in fear,” she said. On Saturday, as she walked amid shattered glasses, cups and plates in her home, she said she felt helpless. “I have no electricity, no water, no cellphone, no telephone,” she said. “I have no idea what’s happening.” Ms. Ito added: “I’m afraid it might happen again. I’m so afraid, my feet are tingling.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/world/asia/13scene.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss |
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| yass | Mar 14 2011, 12:05 AM Post #63 |
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'night owl'
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Whole towns gone--no cars or people seen Koji Yasuda / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer The Yomiuri Shimbun's airplane Mirai, which I was aboard, left Hokkaido's Hakodate Airport shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday, heading for the areas devastated by the massive Tohoku Pacific Offshore Earthquake and subsequent tsunamis on Friday. The plane flew south along the Pacific Ocean coastline. At 8:23 a.m., devastated areas with collapsed houses and other visible tsunami damage began to appear near Hachinohe Port in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture. Machines and other equipment lay scattered around factories at the port having been tossed here and there by the surging waters. Floating oil was forming spiral patterns offshore. The plane flew further south. The town of Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, once nestled in the curve of a bay, had been swept away by a tsunami. The ground was soaked in seawater and shining as it reflected the sunlight. A settlement, above which white smoke was rising, was spotted at the back of another bay. It was Yamadamachi in Iwate Prefecture. The town was swallowed up by sea waters. After a series of tsunami waves Friday, the seawater surface was already calm. But pieces of wreckage were floating around the area. At 8:53 a.m., the plane flew over Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture. The flatland, which extends into the sea like a cape, was totally swallowed by a tsunami, leaving no trace that a town was there. On an area of higher ground, I spotted a dozen cars and several people. I wondered if they were waiting to be rescued. They were looking up the sky with dazed expressions. The next town south was Rikuzen-Takata, but almost no buildings were to be seen where the town should have been located. It seemed as if the port town had suddenly vanished. What I could see there were only medium-rise buildings believed to be made of reinforced concrete, such as a hospital. Piles of rubble were seen scattered even as far as wooded areas several kilometers away from the coastline. The plane entered Miyagi Prefecture. The city of Kesennuma smoldered beneath clouds of white smoke. The fishery town was ravaged by a tsunami during the day and suffered intense blazes at night. As if nothing burnable was left, the tragic area was filled with only rubble. Black smoke also boiled into the sky at Kesennuma, on a part of the coast where heavy oil was flowing from damaged tanks. Inland urban areas were still covered with seawater and white smoke was rising in some places as if the areas had been destroyed by air raids. (Mar. 13, 2011) http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110312004789.htm |
| -Love will lead | |
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| yass | Mar 14 2011, 12:13 AM Post #64 |
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'night owl'
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Google released some of it's before and after satellite images, here are a few in Sendai. Devastating! Arahama in Sendai in 2008.  Arahama in Sendai after tsunami.  Fujitsuka in Sendai in 2008.  Fujitsuka in Sendai after tsunami.  Sendai airport in 2003.  Sendai Airport after tsunami.  https://picasaweb.google.com/118079222830783600944/Japan?feat=directlink#5583300886323486834 |
| -Love will lead | |
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| yass | Mar 14 2011, 12:19 AM Post #65 |
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'night owl'
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Mud-spattered survivors of Sendai venture into devastation and destruction following earthquake Sunday, March 13th 2011, 4:00 AM  Kyodo News/AP People stand on the roof of an elementary school in Sendai, Japan as they take shelter Saturday from the devastation. Mud-spattered survivors of an earthquake-ravaged city in northeast Japan ventured out today into a landscape of devastation and destruction. They roamed the streets of Sendai - where fallen trees, cars and trucks were tossed on top of buildings, wedged into stairwells and strewn across roadways after a massive earthquake and a tsunami slammed the coastal city Friday. "There are so many people who lost their lives," an elderly man said, weeping. "I have no words to say." Houses were ripped from foundations by the epic wall of water that crashed into the city's dock area and giant tidal waves - filled with shipping containers and debris - barreled up to 6 miles inland. Police found 200 to 300 bodies on the beaches of the port city with a population of about 1 million people. Locals recounted the horrifying moment the earth began to shake from the 8.9-magnitude quake. "We were desperately trying to hold the furniture up," said Satako Yusawa, 69, of the terrifying two minutes that the ground shook. "But the shaking was so fierce that we just panicked." Windows smashed, a second-floor ceiling collapsed and several TVs, air conditioners and other pieces of equipment were thrown around in an electronics store during the monster earthquake. "Things were shaking so much we couldn't stand up," said Hiroyuki Kamada, who was working in the store when the initial quake hit. Then came the colossal waves of the tsunami. "The flood came in from behind the store and swept around both sides," said convenience store owner Wakio Fushima. "Cars were flowing right by." Scores of people yesterday waited outside local stores, where owners were giving away batteries, flashlights and cell phone chargers. Naomi Ishizawa, 24, a cell phone saleswoman, was working when the quake hit and it took a half-day to reach her house just outside Sendai. The tsunami's waves seemed to stop just short of her home, but most of the houses in her neighborhood were destroyed. Her immediate family was unharmed, but she had yet to hear from several others. "My uncle and his family live in an area near the shore where there were a lot of deaths," Ischizawa said. "We can't reach them." The grim reality was the same in regions across Japan. "All the shops are closed. This is one of the few still open. I came to buy and stock up on diapers, drinking water and food," Kunio Iwatsuki, 68, said at a damaged supermarket in Mito, also on the ravaged coast. Aid had not yet arrived at emergency shelters, where power failures left many huddling in the cold with little to eat. "All we have to eat are biscuits and rice balls," said Noboru Uehara, 24, a delivery truck driver wrapped in a blanket at a center in Iwake, about 4 miles northeast of Tokyo. "I'm worried that we will run out of food." Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/03/13/2011-03-13_mudspattered_survivors_of_sedai_venture_into_devastation_.html#ixzz1GY3AWkYA |
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