Japan Earthquake & Tsunami

                       Japan Earthquake & Tsunami   

Dear Japan - The world is with You - May god Bless - Greetings from www.JapanCurrent.com -

The most powerful earthquake rocked Japan's northeast coast on Friday, triggering a 10-metre tsunami that killed hundreds of people and swept away everything in its path. The quake, the most powerful since Japan started keeping records 140 years ago, sparked at least 80 fires in cities and towns along the coast.

The 8.9 magnitude quake, and the 10-metre high tsunami it triggered, are believed to have killed thousands of people along the coast of northeastern Japan. Nearly 7,000 people have been confirmed killed in the double natural disaster, which turned whole towns into waterlogged and debris-shrouded wastelands. Another 10,700 people are missing with many feared dead. Some 390,000 people, including many among Japan's aging population, are homeless and battling near-freezing temperatures in shelters in northeastern coastal areas.

The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. There were several strong aftershocks. Thick smoke was also pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama’s Isogo area.
Residents of the city were seen running out of shaking buildings, shielding their heads with their hands from falling masonry.  In Mito, another town in the area, long lines formed outside a damaged supermarket as hundreds waited for medicine, water and other supplies.

Thousands of residents near a nuclear plant in Fukushima, north of Tokyo, were told to evacuate after the 8.9 magnitude quake. A major explosion hit a petrochemical complex in Miyagi prefecture after the quake and an intense fire in the waterfront area near Sendai, the city hardest hit by the quake. Hundreds of fishing vessels, many upturned, stood stranded in the fields, washed inland by the walls of water. In shelters across the region, residents wrapped themselves in blankets, some clutching each, while others sobbed.

In large coastal areas, entire neighbourhoods were destroyed, with unknown numbers of victims buried in the rubble of their homes or lost to the sea, where cars, shipping containers, debris and entire houses were afloat. The coastal city of Rikuzentakata in Iwate prefecture was almost completely destroyed and submerged.

Survivors of Japan’s worst recorded earthquake and a tsunami huddled in shelters and hoarded supplies on Saturday as rescue workers searched the rubble of a coastline choked by cars, boats and levelled homes. In districts around Fukushima, a city about 67 km south of Sendai, many survivors lined up for drinking water in town centres, filling teapots and plastic containers, while Japan’s Self-Defence Force officers searched for missing people. In the nearby town of Oarai, survivors crammed into a school gymnasium turned into a shelter.

The word tsunami itself is Japanese — meaning “harbour wave” — reflecting the quake-prone country’s long and sometimes tragic experience with the phenomenon. Japan’s earthquake monitoring and tsunami warning system is one of the most sophisticated and costliest in the world, befitting an economically developed, seismically cursed nation that, on average, experiences a quake every five minutes. Buildings are, by law, erected to withstand tremors.

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