8.9 earthquake hits Japan • Hacker News Board

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#111

Post by david2777 » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 9:51 AM UTC

jarin wrote: post #89

Text message from my parents in Hawaii just now: "At 11:01 pm we just had a 4.6 earthquake on the big island" There's also increased seismic activity on some of the volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest (far left link on each row shows latest activity): http://www.pnsn.org/WEBICORDER/VOLC/welcome.html I'm not a seismologist so I have no idea if that's as gnarly as it looks.

Small world. I live in East Hawaii and I felt that. It was from the Volcano, which after erupting for the past few days stopped last night and I guess it started again.

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#112

Post by crowsfan85 » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 9:58 AM UTC

cloudwalking wrote: post #71

Here is a stream of images from Japan: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=twitpic+near%3Ajapan+with...

From above stream, a shot of people waiting to be rescued: http://twitpic.com/48e4r4

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#113

Post by fungi » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 10:00 AM UTC

craigmccaskill wrote: post #82

icco wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the same reason Californians talk about the entire state no matter where the quake hits the state. Also, Al Jazeera is reporting 4+ million homes are without power in Tokyo.

The nuclear power plants were automatically shut down, the power grid buckled at that point.

The plants are right on the coast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan#Nuclear_...

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#114

Post by mceachen » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 10:03 AM UTC

InfinityX0 wrote: post #75

I hope Ray Grieselhuber of Ginzametrics (YC) is OK - along with everyone else. I am pretty sure he is based around Tokyo. http://ginzametrics.com/ginzametrics-is-hiring-in-tokyo.html

I emailed him as soon as I got the NOAA tsunami notification email -- he's fine -- he's in California.

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#115

Post by amitt » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 10:04 AM UTC

eekfuh wrote: post #45

Zynga in japan: http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/199150_899666... and they are still working apparently

I'm in this picture (the blobby looking guy) and yeah we were working under the desks while all of the aftershocks were happening. It was pretty intense as we've been having earthquakes here the last few days and thought it was going to just be another small one. It kept intensifying, however, until we were forced to go under the desks. Definitely a very long 3 minutes.

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#116

Post by mceachen » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 10:07 AM UTC

If you're in Hawaii or California, we're in a Tsunami Warning (which is the run-for-the-hills, highest grade warning): http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/2011/03/11/lhvpd9/04/messagelhvpd...

If you're on a coastline, here are the tsunami height predictions: http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/models/models.html

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#117

Post by wtallis » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 10:09 AM UTC

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #106

nostrademons wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's just such a system for several municipalities in the U.S - the reverse 911 system, which robo-calls your home or cell phone in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency. I just signed up for it in Mountain View CA, and my mom got a reverse-911 call for the Boston water main break this winter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_911

Yes, but how many people signed up for that? The parent proposed contacting everyone , remember...

Have we all forgotten what the word broadcast means? If sending everyone the same signal at the same time is hard, you're doing it wrong.

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#118

Post by uxp » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 10:11 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #101

zeugma wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that strange ? I mean cable should be more easily broken than airwaves, no ? Is it because the landlines in Japan are designed to resist and the cell phone tower got power disruption ?

It's because everyone in Japan started sending SMSes to everyone they knew practically before the shaking stopped and that DOSed the network. This happens fairly regularly (e.g. for a few minutes after midnight on New Years, when a large portion of Japanese people send well wishes within the same 15 second window).

Although it may not have happened in this instance, cell towers are prone to fall down if shaken violently.

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#119

Post by atgm » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 10:20 AM UTC

Maebashi, Gunma here. I was on the 10th floor of city hall when it happened and bookcases were falling all over; we were trying to hold them up and not really getting how serious it was. That was a few hours ago and we're still getting periodic aftershocks. No sea here, so we don't have to worry about tsunami, luckily.

I was fine during the quake itself and now I'm having an attack of the nerves; it still feels like the ground is moving and I can't stop eating, heh.

Malls and grocery stores are closed, so the local convenience stores are being stripped of absolutely everything.

Re: 8.9 earthquake hits Japan

#120

Post by whatusername » Fri, Mar 11, 2011, 10:21 AM UTC

apsurd wrote: post #17

Is there any system currently able to mass-call all cellphones from any/all carriers within a given geo-location radius? Or any type of push notification service for natural disasters. Seems like this happened during the day but watching the news made me think about disasters that happen at night. How are people notified to get the hell out of there??

Yes. http://www.theage.com.au/national/victorians-receive-fire-te...

// Although that was a warning message -- not an emergency one.