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Tsunami watch lifted after two big earthquakes
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By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 3:05 PM EDT, Wed April 11, 2012
Click link to play video
Preparing search and rescue post-quake
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Four slightly injured on Simeulue Island
Thailand announces evacuations along the Andaman coast
An 8.2-magnitude aftershock strikes, followed by a series of smaller quakes
There were no immediate reports of destruction or deaths
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Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) -- A massive earthquake struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Wednesday afternoon, triggering a tsunami watch for the Indian Ocean, which was later canceled.
The quake struck about 434 kilometers (270 miles) southwest of Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, and had a magnitude of 8.6, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It took place at a depth of 23 kilometers (14 miles).
A second large quake, with a magnitude of 8.2, occurred off the west coast of Sumatra about two hours later, the USGS said.
Gary Gibson from the Seismology Research Center in Melbourne, Australia, said the location of the second quake reduced the possibility of a tsunami.
There was also a series of smaller quakes off the west coast of northern Sumatra with magnitudes between 5.1 and 5.4.
There were no reports of destruction or deaths.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on local television that there were no reports of casualties or damage in Aceh.
Four people were slightly injured on Simeulue Island, off the coast of Aceh, the National Disaster Management Agency said Wednesday.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch for the entire Indian Ocean. And a few hours later, the center announced the tsunami watch was canceled.
"A significant tsunami was generated by this earthquake. However, sea level readings now indicate that the threat has diminished or is over for most areas," the center said.
The center earlier said that "when no major waves have occurred for at least two hours after the estimated arrival time or damaging waves have not occurred for at least two hours, then local authorities can assume the threat is passed." The center posted approximate arrival times for waves in different parts of the region, which were predicted at various times in different cities throughout the day.
Waves were reported at 1-meter (about 3.3-foot) amplitude -- or height above sea level -- offshore in Meulaboh, Indonesia, but in other cities, they were reported at about a foot or less, according to the warning center.
British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Britain "stands ready to help if required."
It appears to have involved a horizontal movement rather than a vertical movement, so it is less likely that it will generate a tsunami, Gibson said.
He also said that the tremor took place a long way offshore and was therefore unlikely to have caused much damage.
Still, officials called on coastal residents in some low-lying areas in the region to seek higher ground.
The power went out in Banda Aceh, and residents moved to higher elevations, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency.
The areas most at risk of a tsunami are coastal areas of Aceh, particularly the island of Simeulue, Prih Harjadi, an official for the Indonesian geophysics agency, said on Metro TV.
In some areas, residents were allowed to return after the tsunami watch was lifted.
In Thailand, the National Disaster Warning Center issued an evacuation order for residents and tourists along the Andaman coast, state-run news agency MCOT said.
"The tremor was felt as far as in Bangkok where office workers at several high-rise buildings said their workplaces were shaken" for three to five minutes, the report said. "Several southern provinces also felt the tremors."
In the Maldives, some resorts were evacuated in advance of possible waves, according to CNN's Erin Burnett, who was on vacation in the region.
"What strikes me most is essentially the lack of a warning system" in the Maldives, she said. Officials rely primarily on information from the USGS, Burnett said.
In 2004, a 9.1-magnitude underwater earthquake off the coast of Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in 14 countries. The majority of the deaths were in Indonesia, with Aceh bearing the brunt.
That quake took place 250 kilometers (155 miles) south-southeast of Banda Aceh at a depth of 30 kilometers (19 miles).
The tsunami, which washed away entire communities, caused nearly $10 billion in damage and more casualties than any other tsunami in history, according to the United Nations.
Since then, officials have worked to improve warning systems and have carried out drills in the region.
Indonesia is on the so-called Ring of Fire, an arc of fault lines circling the Pacific Basin that is prone to frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
The earthquake Wednesday comes just over year after a magnitude-9 quake off the northeast coast of Japan caused a devastating tsunami. The death toll from that disaster stands at about 15,850.
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Tsunami watch lifted after two big earthquakes
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By the CNN Wire... more
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The New York Times...
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February 27, 2012
Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo in Nuclear Crisis
By MARTIN FACKLER
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TOKYO — In the darkest moments of last year’s nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident disclosed on Monday.
The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organization, offers one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A team of 30 university professors, lawyers and journalists spent more than six months on the inquiry into Japan’s response to the triple meltdown at the plant, which followed a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that shut down the plant’s cooling systems.
The team interviewed more than 300 people, including top nuclear regulators and government officials, as well as the prime minister during the crisis, Naoto Kan. They were granted extraordinary access, in part because of a strong public demand for greater accountability and because the organization’s founder, Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is one of Japan’s most respected public intellectuals.
An advance copy of the report describes how Japan’s response was hindered at times by a debilitating breakdown in trust between the major actors: Mr. Kan; the Tokyo headquarters of the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco; and the manager at the stricken plant. The conflicts produced confused flows of sometimes contradictory information in the early days of the crisis, the report said.
It describes frantic phone calls by the manager, Masao Yoshida, to top officials in the Kan government arguing that he could get the plant under control if he could keep his staff in place, while at the same time ignoring orders from Tepco’s headquarters not to use sea water to cool the overheating reactors. By contrast, Mr. Funabashi said in an interview, Tepco’s president, Masataka Shimizu, was making competing calls to the prime minister’s office saying that the company should evacuate all of its staff, a step that could have been catastrophic.
The 400-page report, due to be released later this week, also describes a darkening mood at the prime minister’s residence as a series of hydrogen explosions rocked the plant on March 14 and 15. It says Mr. Kan and other officials began discussing a worst-case outcome if workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were evacuated. This would have allowed the plant to spiral out of control, releasing even larger amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere that would in turn force the evacuation of other nearby nuclear plants, causing further meltdowns.
The report quotes the chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yukio Edano, as having warned that such a “demonic chain reaction” of plant meltdowns could result in the evacuation of Tokyo, 150 miles to the south.
“We would lose Fukushima Daini, then we would lose Tokai,” Mr. Edano is quoted as saying, naming two other nuclear plants. “If that happened, it was only logical to conclude that we would also lose Tokyo itself.”
The report also describes the panic within the Kan administration at the prospect of large radiation releases from the more than 10,000 spent fuel rods that were stored in relatively unprotected pools near the damaged reactors. The report says it was not until five days after the earthquake that a Japanese military helicopter was finally able to confirm that the pool deemed at highest risk, near the No. 4 reactor, was still safely filled with water.
“We barely avoided the worst-case scenario, though the public didn’t know it at the time,” Mr. Funabashi, the foundation founder, said.
Mr. Funabashi blamed the Kan administration’s fear of setting off a panic for its decision to understate the true dangers of the accident. He said the Japanese government hid its most alarming assessments not just from its own public but also from allies like the United States. Mr. Funabashi said the investigation revealed “how precarious the U.S.-Japan relationship was” in the early days of the crisis, until the two nations began daily informational meetings at the prime minister’s residence on March 22.
The report seems to confirm the suspicions of nuclear experts in the United States — inside and outside the government — that the Japanese government was not being forthcoming about the full dangers posed by the stricken Fukushima plant. But it also shows that the United States government occasionally overreacted and inflated the risks, such as when American officials mistakenly warned that the spent fuel rods in the pool near unit No. 4 were exposed to the air and vulnerable to melting down and releasing huge amounts of radiation.
Still, Mr. Funabashi said, it was the Japanese government’s failure to warn its people of the dangers and the widespread distrust it bred in the government that spurred him to undertake an independent investigation. Such outside investigations have been rare in Japan, where the public has tended to accept official versions of events.
He said his group’s findings conflicted with those of the government’s own investigation into the accident, which were released in an interim report in December. A big difference involved one of the most crucial moments of the nuclear crisis, when the prime minister, Mr. Kan, marched into Tepco’s headquarters early on the morning of March 15 upon hearing that the company wanted to withdraw its employees from the wrecked nuclear plant.
The government’s investigation sided with Tepco by saying that Mr. Kan, a former social activist who often clashed with Japan’s establishment, had simply misunderstood the company, which wanted to withdraw only a portion of its staff. Mr. Funabashi said his foundation’s investigators had interviewed most of the people involved — except executives at Tepco, which refused to cooperate — and found that the company had in fact said it wanted a total pullout.
He credited Mr. Kan with making the right decision in forcing Tepco not to abandon the plant.
“Prime Minister Kan had his minuses and he had his lapses,” Mr. Funabashi said, “but his decision to storm into Tepco and demand that it not give up saved Japan.”
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PHOTO:
Issei Kato/Reuters, via Bloomberg
Journalists, in protective gear, were taken on a tour last week of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, at the center of the crisis last yea
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February 27, 2012
Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo... more
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Emotional Toll of the Tsunami
CNN
Added on September 6, 2011
Japan's tsunami zone fears an onslaught of suicide and PTSD cases.
CNN's Kyung Lah reports.
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Emotional Toll of the Tsunami
CNN
Added on September 6, 2011... more
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CNN...
Japanese prime minister announces resignation
From Kyung Lah, CNN
August 26, 2011 2:56 a.m. EDT
Click picture to play video
Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigns
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Japan's next prime minister will inherit a series of problems, including soaring debt
Kan has been under pressure to resign since a March earthquake and tsunami
The resignation fulfills his promise to step down after two bills pass
Naoto Kan
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Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, whose approval rating tumbled following the devastating March earthquake and tsunami, announced his resignation Friday.
Kan announced he is stepping down as party leader during a meeting with members of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. The party will elect a new leader next week, who will take over as prime minister.
The resignation fulfills his promise to step down after parliament approved two pieces of legislation, including one related to post-earthquake reconstruction.
"I will put my words into action once those two bills are approved," Kan said this month at a Lower House committee session.
Kan believes the two bills -- the deficit-financing bond bill and the new energy promotion bill -- will push forward his reconstruction policies.
The bills passed Friday.
Kan has been under pressure to resign since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis in the nation. The disaster triggered the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, as cores overheated and spewed radioactive material into surrounding areas.
Soon after the disaster, ratings agency Moody's put the country debt under review for a possible downgrade, as political infighting undermined measures to fix the budget deficit. Moody's officially downgraded Japan's credit on Wednesday, citing its unstable politics
In June, the embattled leader narrowly escaped a vote of no confidence in parliament.
As many as nine candidates, including Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda and former foreign minister, Seiji Maehara, are considered possible contenders for the post of prime minister.
Kan's resignation allows him to remain in office until the ruling party elects its new leader, a move scheduled for Monday.
A day later, parliament will vote in the new leader as prime minister, the sixth premier for the nation in five years.
Japan's next prime minister will inherit a series of problems, including soaring debt, nuclear woes, a shrinking population and a nation struggling to rebuild after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.
.CNN...
Japanese prime minister announces resignation
From Kyung Lah, CNN... more
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Orphaned in quake, forgotten in Japan
The Japanese government still doesn't have an accurate count of the number of children orphaned in the March earthquake and tsunami. Adding to their woes, a group helping the children says people have stopped calling to offer
VIDEOOrphaned in quake, forgotten in Japan
The Japanese government still... more
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PHOTO: Each day he comes to sit and stare down at the shell of an elementary school where the tsunami swept away 74 children. Two were his grandchildren. "I didn't say goodbye to them. Now I'll never hear 'hello' from them."
CNN...
Two months after tsunami, Japanese struggle to cope
By Kyung Lah, CNN
May 10, 2011 11:42 a.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Two months on, Japanese struggle to recover from 9.0 earthquake and tsunami
Signs of progress and paralysis span the 200 square miles of destroyed coastline
Paralysis mainly emotional as parents try to adjust to such loss of young lives
But there is also physical paralysis in reconstruction and recovery
Ishinomaki, Japan (CNN) -- The grandfather sits perched on a hill, staring down at the shell of an elementary school. He's been here every single day, spending hours staring down at the school, ever since the tsunami swept away and killed 74 of the 108 schoolchildren of Ishinomaki Okawa Elementary School. Two of those young victims were his grandchildren.
"They left in the morning saying 'Itekimas' (we're leaving)," he says. "I didn't say goodbye to them. Now I'll never hear 'hello' from them."
He wipes his eyes with his gloves, the dirt from the heavy machinery nearby smearing on his weathered face. The machines have been sifting through the rubble from the school, crushing it to be moved out of the area. The man, who declined to share his name with CNN, says the clean-up has been going on for weeks.
But this grandfather hasn't been able to leave this hill, even as there's progress removing the debris.
He stares down at a picture of the children on his mobile phone and says, "I want to stay here to be close to them. There's no joy in life now. I feel so alone."
Just a few feet away, a stack of flowers mark a memorial for the children. A teddy bear and Japanese anime cards are tucked in under the bouquets.
Workers enter reactor No. 1 in Japan
Inside the school, remnants of the children's lives lie stacked in a classroom. Teddy bears, colored markers, baseball gloves and tennis shoes have been dusted of the debris, though they all bear the stains of the muddy water that claimed their young owners.
Two women duck in and out of the room, just two of the many mothers who make a daily pilgrimage through these haunted halls.
The neighborhood monk prays at the school daily, though there are few who hear him, except, perhaps, the stolen souls of the children.
Two months after Japan's historic 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, signs of both progress and paralysis span the 200 square miles of destroyed coastline. The progress is coming in the form of clearing some debris, though that's spotty at best. The paralysis is primarily emotional, like the parents who say they can't comprehend losing so many young lives and how to keep living without them.
But there is also physical paralysis in reconstruction and recovery, the result of the devastation's scope and the large number of victims.
In half of the town of Ishinomaki, it still looks as if the tsunami came through yesterday, not two months ago. As far as the eye can see near Ishinomaki's city hospital, little debris has budged. Ships still sit scattered on top of houses like a disaster movie. There are very few residents wandering through here.
Those tsunami victims are in evacuation centers. An estimated 130,000 people throughout the disaster zone, from both the tsunami and the Fukushima Nuclear Plant crisis, have nowhere to live. Temporary housing is going up across the region, but at a painfully slow pace, evacuees say.
"We can't live a normal life here," says Hiromitsu Suzuki, who lost his home in the tsunami. "We're all frustrated, both the adults and children. We understand it was an enormous earthquake and tsunami. But still, we need the government to end this situation."
Suzuki says he has no idea when he, his parents, his sister and her three children will be able to move into temporary housing. Frustrated with living in a gymnasium with more than 100 people, Suzuki broke down as many cardboard boxes as he could find and built walls around their blankets, creating some privacy. His mother used cardboard to section off a small pantry. They built a small toy box for the children. Suzuki put up a calendar so the family wouldn't lose track of the days.
Suzuki's father, 69-year-old Yoshichi, says he's frustrated as well. But he still has hope life will improve, marked by a sign of spring in his houseplants. The tsunami washed the plants away with their house, but the family found four of them in the rubble. Those four plants are now starting to bloom.
"They were washed away by the tsunami, but still survived," says Yoshichi Suzuki. "And they're blooming with flowers now. Just like the plants, we must go on and live."
Back at Ishinomaki Okawa Elementary, the grandfather on the hill hasn't budged. The construction crews have paused to get lunch and the school grounds fall silent. The grandfather says he's been told he must go on and keep living. But how, he asks. Someone tell me how.PHOTO: Each day he comes to sit and stare down at the shell of an elementary school... more
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In the tsunami aftermath, efforts are focused on new defenses
By Brian Walker, CNN
April 12, 2011 11:04 p.m. EDT
Click on picture to play video
Learning from Japan's tsunami
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Teams of scientists are working to figure out the devastating power of the tsunami waves
And experts will use that information to try to design new defenses
Professor: The work "is to help not only Japanese but other people ... avoid disaster"
Yamada, Japan (CNN) -- Just over a month after the worst natural disaster in modern Japanese history, scientists and researchers are still trying to piece together the mystery of exactly how and why some areas were wiped out by tsunami and others escaped.
International teams of geologists are mapping out the geological causes and complex effects of the March 11 tsunami waves triggered by a magnitude-9.0 quake off the eastern coast of Japan.
First moments of the tsunami Video
More than 13,000 people died in the tsunami and another 14,000 are still missing and feared washed to sea, including a dozen residents of Yoriso in Miyagi prefecture.
The small fishing village juts out on a peninsula, making it the closest populated point to the epicenter of the quake, and one of the first places to be hit by the tsunami waves.
Rumi Endo, a 17-year-old high school student now sheltered in the village elementary school recounted the terror she felt after rushing to high ground as the tsunami siren sounded.
Japan marks one month since quake, tsunami
"I had never imagined such a thing happening," she said as she showed a video taken on her cell phone, powered by a hand-cranked generator. "I was scared to death."
She said that a total of four waves crashed through the concrete breakwater sheltering the cove. In her video she is screaming as one wave picks up a family member's home and carries it careening far up the hill.
It's the job of teams like that led by Akio Okayasu to figure out just how high those waves got, so experts can help design new defenses against future tsunamis.
Up the coast in the town of Yamada, the professor of engineering at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology measured wave heights of more than 15 meters in some spots.
But some other locations in the same bay look virtually untouched, with waves under half that size.
Wearing hard hats and heavy boots, the teams scramble up cliffs and comb through shattered buildings.
They're scanning for clues such as dirty water lines near the roofs of two-story warehouses and floating fishing gear tangled in power lines that give them a hint of the destructive power of the waves.
They use sophisticated laser pointers, computers with global positioning systems and towering measuring sticks to log the wave heights and strength.
Associate professor of engineering at Georgia Tech Hermann Fritz specializes in monitoring tsunamis. He's conducted field studies of a dozen, including the one off the Indonesian coast in 2004 that killed over 200,000 people.
Still, he was stunned by the amount of debris and the ultimate height of the latest tsunami.
The survey teams have registered run-up heights of nearly 38 meters, or 124 feet, while tsunami waters rushed up to 10 kilometers, or six miles, inland in some places.
In Yamada, the town had just completed a new 7-meter-tall concrete tsunami wall with thick steel gates built to be slammed shut in case of an alert.
The new walls appeared to have held against the initial battering. But the tsunami waters rushed around the older sections on the edges, engulfing the town and then knocking down some sections as the water flowed back to the sea.
Okayasu says that just like a modern computer, in the effort to design new defenses hardware is just part of the solution: software is also needed.
He says that studies like his will help to show where walls need to be built higher or stronger.
But he also warns that rebuilding needs to be done smarter, with easier roads for evacuation, and tall, strong towers for people to gather in.
Okayasu says there also need to be improvements in how people and governments cope with evacuations and disaster planning.
"We can expect another big quake and tsunami to hit within 30 years, maybe in western Japan or somewhere else in the world," says Okayasu.
Words of hope for Japan
"Our final goal here is to help not only Japanese but also other people in the world avoid disaster."In the tsunami aftermath, efforts are focused on new defenses
By Brian Walker, CNN... more
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“Machine Civilization” is the fabulously choreographed music video by World Order, the celebrated Japanese music/dance performance group led by former martial artist Genki Sudo. The video features slow-motion breakdance voguing Japanese businessmen, released along with some words of hope following the recent earthquake and tsunami devastation in Japan. Genki Sudo accompanied his video with these words of hope:
“The unprecedented disasters unfolding in Japan; earthquakes, tsunami, and nuclear explosions, will somehow change things to come. And to send my message about this, I have expressed it here with World Order. These disasters can be interpreted as a turning point for civilization. I think that we have arrived at a time of revolution, shared with all the people of the world, in today’s society, economy, and political systems.
Incidents themselves are neutral. I believe that every single one of us, wandering through this deep darkness, can overcome anything, if only we let go of our fear, and face the it all in a positive light. The world is not going to change. Each one of us will change. And if we do, then yes, the world will be changed. It is darkest right before the dawn. Let’s all rise up to welcome the morning that will be so very bright for mankind. We are all one.”
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, as well as the wonderfully choreographed music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/machine-civilization-we-are-all-one/“Machine Civilization” is the fabulously choreographed music video by... more
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“The Taxi Lights of Tokyo” is a wonderful collection of color photographs by New York City street photographer Joseph O. Holmes. It’s an incredible series of images, which captures the spirit of a city that glitters and shines much like Times Square. The photographs reflect a nighttime urban mood that seems always the same, with scenes that are enhanced by the colorful out-of-focus background of other lighted signs.
This piece presents a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and three documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/photos-of-the-day-the-taxi-lights-of-tokyo/“The Taxi Lights of Tokyo” is a wonderful collection of color photographs... more
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New footage of the Japanese tsunami's waves has been released by the country's coast guard.
Footage courtesy of the Japanese Coast Guard
Filmed 5 km (3 miles) off the north-eastern coast of Japan, the images show the waves rolling towards a the Matsushima coast guard vessel. The captain steers the boat directly into the waves and the ship crests the enormous swell.New footage of the Japanese tsunami's waves has been released by the... more
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'Whale Wars' activist survives quake
By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
March 19, 2011 3:05 p.m. EDT
Scott West was in unfriendly territory when the quake hit.
Edmonds, Washington (CNN) --
Scott West went to Japan expecting trouble.
A veteran anti-porpoise hunting activist, West documents and protests the killing of the mammals. His actions are deeply unpopular in many of the Japanese coastal communities that cling to the tradition of catching and eating whale.
West's organization, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has a long and colorful history of clashing with the Japanese. In the Animal Planet series "Whale Wars," Sea Shepherd volunteers impede Japanese whale fishing off the coast of Antarctica.
Their tactics include placing their boats in front of whaling ships, attempting to carry out citizen's arrests of the Japanese crew and heaving acid stink bombs onto the vessels. For their efforts, the Sea Shepherd volunteers have had flash bang grenades thrown at them, their boats sunk in collisions and detainment for days by the Japanese crews.
The show has made the Sea Shepherd members reality TV stars and notorious in Japan.
March 11 started like many other days for Scott West. He was in an unfriendly territory, a small Japanese coastal town where a porpoise hunt was under way and the efforts of outsiders to document the slaughter were not welcome.
West led a five person Sea Shepherd team of Mike Vos, Tarah Millen, Carisa Webster and Marley Daviduk to the town of Otsuchi, Japan. They were joined by Brian Barnes a cameraman from Save Japan Dolphins, a group that often collaborates with Sea Shepherd.
The activists had other company, as well.
Closely monitoring the group were two plain clothes Japanese policemen the activists nicknamed "Turner and Hooch," for the Tom Hanks comedy about a cop and his sidekick, a dog.
As detailed in the Academy Award winning documentary "The Cove," the relationship between anti-porpoise hunt activists and Japanese authorities often becomes a game of cat and mouse. The police try to impede the activists from documenting the killing of the dolphins. The activists use disguises and other sleights of hand to keep the police off their tails.
A former EPA and customs investigator, West said he is still able to think like law enforcement agents. And he recounts with a smile how he managed to lose Turner and Hooch at a traffic light with some creative driving as they tried to shadow his group.
West is back in his home in Edmonds, Washington. It's been just over 24 hours since he returned from Japan and four days since the earthquake and tsunami that wrecked much of the country. As he thinks of the two cops back in Otsuchi his mood darkens. "You know those guys are probably dead," he said.
When the earthquake hit in Otsuchi, about 94 miles from Sendai, the quake's epicenter, the activists were at the town's port waiting for the porpoise fishing boats to return with their catch.
"The car was rocking and rolling it was actually jumping on the pavement like a frog," West said. "We got out of the cars and it was almost impossible to stand up. The ground was heaving. It lasted for a long time."
Immediately seafood workers got out of factories as the town loud speakers called for residents to seek higher ground.
The six activists jumped into their two cars and made for the hills. It was a snap decision that West believes saved their lives.
"If we had stayed where we were, they probably would have never found our bodies or our cars," West said.
West estimates that the drive to higher ground took them about eight minutes. In that time the first tsunami waves already crashed into the town. Video West took from the hillside shows fishing ships fighting the incoming rush of water to get to the open ocean and safety. Houses can be seen being dragged out to sea by the monster waves.
On the hillside, the activists were joined by a handful of rescue workers and a Japanese woman.
"It was impossible to comprehend the amount of devastation and the human misery," West said "How many people got to the hill? There were only a handful of us up there. Why aren't there thousands here with us?"
In the video he took from the hill, West narrates as a wave heads toward the area below where they have sought refuge. "Look at the black one heading toward us," he said. An aftershock rocks the activists. "This is scary s**t," a woman says off camera.
As darkness fell, the tsunami waves continued sweeping into the town below them. The rescue workers on the hill left to begin their work and check on their own homes. The activists and the Japanese woman who also made it to the hill took turns warming themselves in the cars.
Over the roar of the waves they heard a voice. "We could hear this woman screaming out in the water," West said. "It was dim out there and all this debris was out there and then we could make out her form on a pile of debris. "
The activists tried to reach her but were pushed back the waves still topping the tsunami wall. They commandeered an abandoned fire truck and the Japanese woman with them used the loud speaker to call to fishing boats off the coast.
"We quit hearing her," West said of the trapped woman. "I don't know if it was because she grew weary or from exhaustion or she floated too far away. But then her voice would come back."
The boats came near to where the woman was floating but the group could not make out if they rescued her. "We don't know if the boats found her but we certainly hope they did," West said. "We heard her voice no more and the sound of her pleas in Japanese are a sound that will stay with me the rest of my life."
The next morning the group marched out of the town that was shrouded in a fog of burning wreckage and diesel.
West calls it a journey through a "post-apocalyptic world." The photos he took along the trip show enormous tsunami barriers torn and twisted by the waters, a person being plucked from a roof top by a rescue helicopter and fields of debris that were once people's homes.
And there are photos of a human body hanging in a tree.
The group came across a teenager still in his school uniform wandering the debris fields. They tried to get him to come with them. Unable to communicate with the activists, the teenager walked away in another direction.
The finally made found a group of Japanese people huddled over a campfire. Their house was destroyed but they offered the travelers soup. West said they felt bad but receiving food from them but "it would have been rude to have refused and it was welcome."
West said he and his companions were only able to leave the devastation through the kindness of Japanese people they encountered along their journey and who they could just barely communicate with.
One man, West said, pantomimed for the group to stay put and then returned with cars to drive them from the disaster area. The Japanese, West said, refused to take anything more than gas money.
Back at his home in Edmonds, West has been able to take a hot shower and sleep in a real bed if not yet fully absorb his ordeal.
West's views on the porpoise hunts haven't changed. But he has invited many of the Japanese people he knows to come stay in his family's home as they try flee the damage and radiation released by the quake. He is more than 4,000 miles from Japan but still feels like he is on the hilltop being battered by the tsunami waves.
"My wife's been saying, 'what if?' I hadn't really allowed myself to go there," West said. "The six of us made it, we are fine, we are home with our families but so many other people didn't make it."'Whale Wars' activist survives quake
By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
March 19,... more
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A massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami that damaged much of the country's coastline. The tsunami waves that followed reached upwards of 30 feet high and devastated Japan's northeastern shoreline. Waves pushed over ships, carried smaller vessels inland, knocked buildings off their foundation and tossed cars about like toys.
In addition, the quake resulted in a nuclear crisis unfolding at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, unlike any seen in history: multiple failures, fires and radiation leaks from at least four separate reactors. While damage from the earthquake and tsunami was instantly visible, the nuclear impact has taken days to unfold and could affect far larger areas of Japan and neighboring countries.
What the sea so violently ripped away, it has now begun to return. On Monday, various reports from police officials and news agencies said that as many as 2,000 bodies had now washed ashore along the coastline, overwhelming the capacity of local officials. About 350,000 people have reportedly been left homeless and are staying in shelters, awaiting news of friends and relatives among the many thousands who remain unaccounted for. The national police said early Tuesday that more than 15,000 were missing, though just 2,475 deaths had been confirmed since the quake.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and a video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/japan-the-devastation-of-the-massive-earthquake-and-tsunami/A massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami that... more
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On March 11, 2011 around 3 o’clock our time, a series of massive earthquakes hit the coast of Japan triggering warnings for tsunamis as high as 10 meters. The first earthquake was 8.9 and was said to have been the most powerful earthquake to hit Japan in over 140 years.
The quake hit about 6 miles below sea level and 78 miles off the east coast. It was followed by five powerful aftershocks of up to 7.1 in scale. The shock was so powerful it was felt as far away as Beijing.
At least 200 people are thought to have been killed due to the devastation in Japan. Also, 40 million homes in Japan have been left without power.
President Obama looked to Twitter to let the United States know that he plans to help. “Sending condolences to the people of Japan, particularly those who lost loved ones in the earthquake & tsunamis. U.S. stands ready to help. I have instructed FEMA to be ready to assist Hawaii and the rest of the U.S. states & territories that could be affected.”
Many other celebrities have also gone on Twitter to express their condolences for the people of Japan and to let them know that they are praying for them.On March 11, 2011 around 3 o’clock our time, a series of massive earthquakes hit... more
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Japan has been shaken due to an earthquake of 8.9 magnitudes. This earthquake has done huge scale damage to infrastructure of Japan. Simultaneously, it has been reported that tsunami waves will strike vast areas of Pacific Ocean. Countries what may come under affect of these tsunami waves are Russia, Philippines, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama.Japan has been shaken due to an earthquake of 8.9 magnitudes. This earthquake has done... more
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An earthquake hit Honshu, Japan today. This quake did not create tsunami. Other areas of Japan what came in quake struck regions are Morioka, Sendai and Fukushima. The intensity of quake on Richter scale was told 7.2. This quake shakes buildings up to Tokyo. However, according to statements of Alaska and West Coast’s warning centres, this quake did no produce a tsunami. But the areas of Alaska coast, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California are not in danger due to the tsunami.An earthquake hit Honshu, Japan today. This quake did not create tsunami. Other areas... more
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explore.org teams up with HATCH to champion the selfless acts of
others through a short film award at this year’s HATCHfest Bozeman
film festival.
The explore/HATCH Award presented by explore.org will be given to a
filmmaker who best tells the story of a remarkable individual's
actions in response to a devastating environmental event.
Winner of the explore/HATCH award will be flown to HATCHfest Bozeman
September 22-25 and be presented with a Canon HD SLR camera package
from explore.org’s founder, Charles Annenberg Weingarten, and HATCH.
For submission info please click here:
http://explore.org/about/explorehatch_award/explore.org teams up with HATCH to champion the selfless acts of
others through a... more
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sun 7:35 update Civil Defense and the 'Blueberries' (nickname for popo in hawai'i as they usually use their own vehicles and slap a blue light on top) did an amazing job keeping an entire state out of the water, because the innocent-looking one-foot punch, or footer tsunami, had hidden debris and dangerous turbulence.
The legendary Hilo farmer's market held at the centuries-infamous tsunami-magnet of Hilo Bay was closed Saturday, Just-picked organic white pineapple [just too sweet to be shipped to mainland, seems the sweeter fruits have very short storage times], fragrant rambutan, melony longon, and striped pink lemons, as well as more recognizeable fruits were packed back in the trucks.
it was really the incredible juicy (because of rainforest downpours) navel oranges i was most after, they probably won't have that at the hippish Maku'u market today.
We received notes and calls of concern - ''my heart goes out to you in your time of crisis'', so i thought i'd clear up some Hawai'i info, as i know it, here-
--My particular island, Hawai'i island is like a mini-continent. over 4,000 square miles, almost all of it soaring from the get-go over sea level. we are like the opposite of Florida and their water damage issues. WE get SNOW. I live 12 MILES and 1600 ft elevation from shore. The tsunami was predicted to reach 2 blocks , and 3-8 ft of elevation, [at very most].
Well, i can still see the ocean from my dirt street [too many trees to see it from my land].
With the unending sirens noone, not even a bird, will be blissfully walking the tidepools unaware of what a suddenly exposed ocean bed means . Though most of the coastline is fortitudinous cliffs.
The major events enshrined by the bay-facing Tsunami Museum happened here before the installation of sirens, back when people rebuilt onto the same vulnerable hot spot here after every life-losing disaster. Finally, a common-sense law was passed and that stretch of waters edge became open space.
The Hilo Bay tsunami magnet now has a long lava-rock seawall built across most of the mouth of the bay, keeping the spectacle of an underwater coconut island [the acre-plus island popular with birthdays and bbqs inside of the large bay], from happening]. There is a movement to remove the seawall and restore SURFING to the heart of downtown Hilo-that probably lost a little steam yesterday.
The damage caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by having a large population practically living on the beach, on a string of coral atolls- pictaresque low islands barely reaching out of the ocean. A lot of tourists drinking Thai beer atop a pile of shells. With NO warning, as the earthquake was locally generated. Everyone and their mother knew a tsunami was heading to Hawai'i.
A major Local earthquake, -there was a teensy one off of Kalapana on Saturday-, would trigger a tsunami with maybe 30 seconds notice to climb back up the cliff. i was here for the 10/15/06 6.7 Big Island quake, we were going full force on the highway when i saw a car fishtailing into the opposite side of the cliff-carved Hwy 11, and this thick beige cloud appeared out of nowhere in front of us. All the cars on the highway stopped. I didn't know what the cloud was till it cleared. It was peaceful. It was a hail of Flinstone boulders and rock from the cliff above, making a temporary rock garden park out of a road where I've known drivers to go 90 mph. The quake triggered a warning but not a wave, and cost an est. $100 mill in damages. The epicenter was an area Bill Gates is rumored to have a house in. Ask him what happened.
All that said, seeing a tsunami hitting multi-directionally on Hawai'i island, still would have inspired a bit of awe.
Here is a link to a permanent live Hilo Bay webcam run by the Tsunami museum :http://www.tsunami.org/hilobaycam.html As you might know, yesterday was clear blue-sky, calm, and temp in the early early 80s. Right now you can tell from the live cam it is wet and grey and has been pouring since the afternoon into the night. I appreciated the beautiful day that was yesterday.
saturday's story is at: http://current.com/items/92235243_tsunami-expected-to-wrap-around-hawaii-island.htm#92237846
Thanks for reading!sun 7:35 update Civil Defense and the 'Blueberries' (nickname for popo in... more
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6:13 pm hst updates: Aside from the tiny reported surges, all in Hawaii is peaceful and safe. Civil Defense managed to get the entire state out of the water. They're good. The ''Blueberries', local slang for the police department (because officers here use their own vehicles and strap a blue light on top), successfully shut access to 750 miles of sometimes isolated shoreline, and it's high-velocity, debris-filled surf of seemingly innocent heights.
The last chapter is at http://current.com/items/92243903_aquacalypse-not-epilogue-of-a-teensy-tsunami-from-the-big-island-of-hawaii.htm
The earlier story: Tsunami sirens finally turn off. Then they turn on again. It's Blitz. A tsunami is expected to hit the coastal areas of the Big Island (Hawai'i island) first around 11:05 today hst, then proceed to the other islands in the state of Hawaii. The tidal wave was be generated by the reported 8.8 Chilean earthquake.
Hawaii state and Big Island residents are generally expected to be very safe as there is five hours of warning, and all have ample elevation to ascend to . After all, Hawai'i Island is home to the tallest mountain in the world if measured from sea floor to pinnacle. Big Wave, meet Big Mountain. The office for the Cannabis Ministry, you know, the one that legally gives away free baggies of 'weed' as a sacrament, is in the evacuation zone. So is the Tsunami museum. Hope the people that live in the seaside caves off of Kea'au to Kalapana have their B plan.
For more info go to Pacific Tsunami Warning Center - http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/?region=2&id=hawaii.2009.09.30.050107
12:19 hst update:
We have been three blocks away from Hilo Bay front, home of the tsunami, for more than an hour. [Running TOWARDS the ghost town barricades as the sirens got louder as we got closer, and closer to 11:05 was surreal.] Nothing yet, just some turbulence. There is a live feed going on right now at Coconut Island, our little island park off the coast. That piece of land is barely above sea level. It's about to host SpongeBob's friends. I brought a telescope and video camera makai, but there's nothing going on but a blue sky day in the 80s. [We would hear it before we'd see it; but there was only the sound of a chicken]. We leave finally, to find an open health food store-two we pass are closed-and spot a shy evacuated kitty waiting in his cargo carrier to go home. And then he does, and we do too.
12:49 hst update:
live video of coconut island taking a bath-
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/category.asp?C=176904&nav=menu55_1_56:13 pm hst updates: Aside from the tiny reported surges, all in Hawaii is peaceful... more
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Hercolubus, también llamado Nibiru o Planeta X, se acerca a nuestro Sistema Solar y esto causará grandes cambios en la Tierra. Pida un ejemplar gratuito del libro en www.hercolubus.tv o en www.planetahercolubus.comHercolubus, también llamado Nibiru o Planeta X, se acerca a nuestro Sistema... more
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BBC was inspired by the recent spate of natural disasters to befall Indonesia AGAIN, and interviewed my friend, Geologist Chris Rowan. In this interview, Chris explains to the BBC interviewer why scientists cannot predict earthquakes nor (to a lesser extent) tsunamis.BBC was inspired by the recent spate of natural disasters to befall Indonesia AGAIN,... more
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