Yesterday was a big day of news, eh? I mean yes the entire Charlie Sheen thing, and Bieber selling that purple shoe... But is was especially a large day for natural disasters.
On March 11th , Japan experienced it's largest earthquake yet, with a magnitude (a way to measure intensity of earthquakes, higher = shakier) of 8.9, the seventh largest in recorded history globally ever. To put this in perspective consider that the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti had a magnitude of 7.0, and that Japan's earthquake had a depth of 15.2 miles whereas Haiti's was 8.1 miles.
It has even been said that the quake moved Japan's land mass by 2.5 cm, and furthermore has altered the earth's axis by 8cm
Following the quake, a tsumani rose on the East Coast of Japan and carried for 10k inland. Thousands of people are unaccounted for currently. An estimated 900 have died, 60 landslides have occured, and 12250 homes have been destroyed.
And as if this wasn't enought, in the northeast of Japan right now a nuclear power plant is in a large state of emergencey as the quake caused a large problem in the plant's cooling system. This has already lead to some radiation escaping the reactor.
Meanwhile despite the Tsunami warnings, Hawaii and the coast of B.C seem to be doing fine. Many march break tourists were moved to higher levels in their hotels and even onto hill sides in Hawaii, and certain areas were cleared in B.C (apparenlty the cast of Twilight had to tranfer locations.) It had been said however, that no extreme conditions or complications have occured
-Em
No comments:
Post a Comment