United States Geological Survey - Geological, Earthquake and Tsunami Info


Just hearing about 8.8 Richter Scale quake off Japan. Very serious. I checked out the very good United States Geological Survey website http://www.usgs.gov/ for hard information.

A 10m / 30ft tsunami is hitting the Pacific coast – the whole of the Pacific region may be hit. From news reports and shocking helicopter coverage, a wall of water and debris is hitting the Japanese coast.

At the moment fatality estimates are just 20 – from the feeds coming in I would be very surprised if the final toll is not much, much, much higher. This is the worst quake / tsunami to hit the region for more than 100 years.

Japan is fairly well prepared and has good rescue infrastructure – Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea etc have little preparation and much poorer communications and support.

The USGS has a very good website about all things geological – USA and world.
It has current world seismic / quake information – go to:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/

This shows seismic activity all around the world (non-geologists may be surprised at all the activity)

For more detail on the Japanese quake and tsunami see:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0001xsy.php

I am hoping that this will not hit anything like the severity of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, which killed over 200,000 people in the region – Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka. Awful.

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K D. Hmm, seeing the coverage of the Japanese earthquake / tsunami makes me think about California. I think if I was based there, I’d invest in both home and office ‘earthquake packs’ just in case… If you never have to use it, great. In Japan, millions of people are sleeping in their offices – some have power, water, food - some don’t. Millions of others are walking home as the roads are jammed and the trains shut down. And Japan is the best prepared country in the world for such events...

3/11/11  •  Votes (0)

K D. Stunned and horrified at the damage - summed up by these satellite before and after pix of main towns hit. (Use the slider to compare.) It is difficult to see how anyone could survive if they were in the towns when the tsunami hit.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/13/world/asia/satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html

3/13/11  •  Votes (0)

K D. http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/82053.html
Ten minutes of aerial footage. Chilling.

3/15/11  •  Votes (0)