A 8.9 earthquake has occurred about 80 miles off of the coast of Japan late last night. There are wide spread reports of damage including damage to a nuclear power station which has had its cooling system damaged.

Most of the damage appears to have been from the massive tsunami that struck all along the coast of the island nation. Reports of fires and building collapses at various industrial sites as well as in residential areas.

There are on going after shocks in the 7.0 range (big earthquakes in their own right) and while the tsunami danger is Japan is passing the entire Pacific Rim is under a tsunami alert. Guam has been hit by the wave but it was only a few feet high there.

The Pacific coast of the United States is expecting the wave to arrive around 7:30PST or in about two hours at the time of this post. Some areas are being ordered evacuated as a precaution.

There are unconfirmed reports of waves as high as 11 meters (about 33 feet) hitting the coast of Japan. In any case an enormous amount of water washed ashore. The primary, damage from tsunami not caused by the breaking of the wave (thought that is very damaging) but the weight of the water moving through the coastal areas. Water weighs eight pounds per gallon and the mass of water that a 11 meter wave, stretching for miles, can bring in land is almost unimaginable.

The video above is from Japan and you can see how this water flowing through Tokyo is moving cars like they are toy boats.

This situation is still developing and we will have continued reports and updates through the day. For now, if you have the means or think that you might have the means please be prepared to donate to emergency aid organizations. As soon as we know the areas that are worst hit I will post links to where you might donate directly.

UPDATE 5:37am PST: The first wave has struck Hawaii. It has been rather small, but the first wave is rarely the largest. There are further waves expected and they could be much much bigger. The next two to three hours will tell the tail.


UPDATE 2 5:47am PST: Reports from Hawaii where the water is has receded out beyond the reef at Diamond Head. This is a bad sign, as the tsunami wave is sucking the water out to sea and then will return in a mass. There will be a much bigger surge of water hitting the shore shortly.

UPDATE 3 6:04am PST: Japanese TV is reporting hundreds of dead in many coastal cities. The oil refinery fire is continuing and firefighters are not able to get close enough to the fire to do much.

The number one Fukushima reactor at the Tokyo power plant is without emergency cooling. And the number two reactor has had its emergency cooling tripped. At this time there has been no release of radiation from either, but the situation remains dangerous. At issue is the ability to keep the reactors from overheating and the rods melting. Obviously the crews there are attempting to shut down the reactors as quickly as possible. There is no word on when that will happen.

As Twolf1 notes there is an evacuation order for within 3 kilometers of the plants and an order to stay inside from 3-10km around the plants. This is a very bad news, they do not issue these kinds of orders without a sever problem.
The floor is yours.

UPDATE 4 6:25am PST: Japanese TV is reporting that there is a massive fire in Miyagi Prefecture is spreading. The pictures look like a wild fire, but the area is urban instead of unpopulated.

40 million people are without power and trains in Tokyo are not running.

The numbers of dead and missing continue to climb.

UPDATE 5 6:47am PST: So far good news in Hawaii, so far there have not been major damage on the beaches. The Pacific Tsunami center is saying this will not be over for another several hours. So though things have not been as catastrophic as Japan, there are is a lot of variation in sea level and could produce large dangerous waves.

The tsunami is expected to strike the West Coast of the United States in about an hour.


UPDATE 7 7:27am PST: In San Francisco the tsunami warning center is only predicting a 1 to 2 foot rise in waves, they as they are at low tide they will not have very bad event.

Further up the coast the wave patterns are different and there will likely be waves in the 9 foot range, which if much higher, but nothing close to what struck Japan. More as the waves come ashore.