Major earthquake hits Japan, tsunamis feared

[Reggie Dunlop]

http://www.disasternews.net/news/art...articleid=3287

Also damaged was a nuclear power plant.

6.7 is pretty strong -- hopefuly damage and casualties are minimal.

[Eddie Bronze]

The Weather Network was just showing footage of a Typhoon hitting the coast of Japan. Waves were very high.

[Sylvanfan]

Says 2 killed and 200 injured. Also mentions that the fires at the nuclear power plant are under control and no radiation leaks. I guess thats pretty minimal damage for a quake like that. They sure seem to get a fair amount of tetonic activity over there though.

[TheCommodoreAfro]

It's been a fun weekend here in Japan. A typhoon just blasted the south and killed 4 or 5 people this weekend (luckily it fizzled out into a windy storm by the time it got to us here in Tokyo) and then this. That's the second major quake in that area in since the spring (the first was a Mag 7 in Ishikawa, about 200kms from the epicentre today), and two-three years ago a different part of the same prefecture was devasted by an even stronger quake. I was watching the reports before heading out today and there was an eery scene that thankfully didn't turn out that bad - NHK, the national broadcaster - had these guys in a helicopter taking a look at a fire. They didn't know what it was at first, but when they circled around they just sort of read the letters on the building, figured out it was a nuclear reactor and started to back off.
Latest news is that the quake claimed 7 lives (mostly older folks who lived in older wooden houses, by the look of it), and injured more than 600. Sad, but in a scary way, almost routine.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Also mentions that the fires at the nuclear power plant are under control and no radiation leaks.

Looks like that has now changed.
Japanese nuke plant leaked after earthquake

Doesn't sound to major, but with nuclear I don't think there's such a thing as a healthy amount of radiation.

[TheCommodoreAfro]

Typical. The Japanese nuke agency is always covering incidents like this up...I actually saw the same headline an hour or two later on CNN, while the Japanese networks hadn't reported anything.