Many rail lines will remain shutdown overnight for safety checks, though a significant majority are damaged. People being urged to seek shelter at work, or elsewhere, instead of returning home.
Update: Sendai struck by another tsunami.
Update 2: TEPC says Tokyo Metropolitan area, 3.6 million are without power.
Oh! I looked pretty hard and even got someone to help at work lol, yes that's Alaska. Forgive me!
On the subject of game/media related comments due to this disaster, anyone thought of WoW: Catalycsm's intro? Almost as if Deathwing woke up.
Nvm late...
As personal experience of the quake from Fussa City in the Tama region (north west of Tokyo), it was a strong earthquake. It registered 5.0 in our area. This is going to be a hell of a mess to clean up. I don't think many buildings were trashed by the quake, but the coastal cities near Sendai were hit by the tsunami. There are no rushes to the stores to buy up goods, but I stocked up on instant curry and ramen .
I guess there's an issue still with Fukushima No. 1's reactor cooling not proceeding as planned; the pumps are inoperable due to deficiencies of emergency power. But again, no radioactive leakage risk at this time. State of nuclear emergency declared under a 2000 law; some sort of joint command center to be errected to deal with the reactor. It could potentially get bad, if things don't work out, but it's much too early for that sort of fearmongering.
Edit: It's unclear why exactly the emergency diesel generators are not operational; presumably due to damage/inundation with water.
Update: No. 1 is facing inoperable emergency diesel generators. No. 2's emergency coolant pumps have been activated.
I'm here in Tokyo on vacation and I've never seen so many tiny girls cry in one place at one time.
Yeah I didn't mean to imply they were. Just saying shit is moving in other places too. Japan actually had quakes going since yesterday this one was just one in the many. Same for Hawaii and other places.
Edit: reading the article though it's not really an official statement, just some off the cuff comment by someone who works there lol.
Probably as good as we'll get on short notice.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...y-tsunami.html
Narita is closed at this time; Haneda is now reopened after safety checks, but flight schedules are heavily disrupted.
Update 1: Sendai City has experienced significant flooding and damage; tsunami had reached nearly 10 km inland from several reports. Eastern areas of Sendai have been stated to be especially bad, wholly underwater. Roughly 1,100 people stranded at Sendai Airport (largely destroyed/heavily flooded).
Update 2: Softbank and other wireless-carriers complying with government request to limit communications for emergency usage, etc.
Looks like the tsunami started to hit Alaska. Says it hit in Shemya, Alaska on my tracker thing.
Looks like the weather will aggrevate the situation in the hard-hit areas, combination of cold/rain.
Also, regarding the Chiba Oil Refinery fire; it will be the first time that Japanese firefighters will have had to resort to usage of a foam to exstingush a fire.
btw incase anyone was wondering, post from Elmer:
We got a few minutes of rocking back and forth, but everything is fine
I hope Beni's album still releases on the 16th @.@
http://i56.tinypic.com/25psb6c.png