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A huge (8.9) earthquake in Japan set off a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean that is expected to reach Hawaii and the west coast of the USA and Canada. If we have any members in these places I hope that they and their families will not be affected. If you had any first-hand stories to relate, please tell them here.

I saw that news whe I woke up this morning. Like Hurricane Katrina 2005 from New Orleans, looks like Tokyo International Aprpoirt skning. Thousands of passengers are standed there, and lot of in-and-out flights are cancelled.

Thankfully, everyone I know in Japan is uninjured. My phone bill for this month is going to be outrageous, though...

Oddly enough, most of my friends in Japan were pretty excited. I suppose it should be expected, coming from a group of fellow geologists...


I did receive a hilarious e-mail from Amazon Japan this morning:
お客様からご注文いただいた商品を本日発送いたしました。
All right, then. Neither rain, nor shine, nor earthquakes, nor tsunamis will stop them from dispatching my parcel!

Clinozoisite wrote:Thankfully, everyone I know in Japan is uninjured. My phone bill for this month is going to be outrageous, though...

Oddly enough, most of my friends in Japan were pretty excited. I suppose it should be expected, coming from a group of fellow geologists...


I did receive a hilarious e-mail from Amazon Japan this morning:
お客様からご注文いただいた商品を本日発送いたしました。
All right, then. Neither rain, nor shine, nor earthquakes, nor tsunamis will stop them from dispatching my parcel!

I had something similar with my shopping service as well, Clino. I heard about the tsunami and knew that my parcels would be delayed, but much to my surprise they were sent out today. Apparently, their Tokyo office is quite well and just "a few toys fell from the shelves".

I have some friends on the west coast I need to get in touch with though so we'll see how they are. I honestly don't know how near they are to the coast ^_^"

I know someone in Hawaii and someone near the coast in California. I think both are OK. The one in Cali sent me a mail last night saying that the weather there was crazy. Rain one day and then 90°F/33°C the next day. And as it happened, a tsunami the next day. I'd have been so sad had she been hurt or anything. The same for her RB collection. I just answered her mail and came here to see what was going on...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

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0304: Mr Lyman goes on to raise the spectre of Chernobyl: "In the worst case the entire core could melt through the steel reactor vessel and escape into the containment building, and then the containment is the only thing that is standing between the radiation in the reactor and the atmosphere. There is a chance if that does occur that there will be over pressure, the containment can fail and you might have a release on the order of the Chernobyl accident."

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0302: A similar warning, but with a more doom-laden tone, comes from Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He tells Reuters: "We don't have all the information but every indication is that the type of event that occurred there is one of the most serious things that can happen to a nuclear reactor."

This sounds quite serious ...

"SunSpire"

I completely forgot that Galacticatt lives in Seattle. I haven't heard anything from her in a while and I'm wondering if everything is OK with her. Does anyone have any news about her?