Anyone in Japan? Tsunami alert - any more news ? PLEASE

[RatherBeOnThePiste]

DH who gets these things has had a tsunami alert for Japan. Does anyone have any more info? Itsjust breaking news about the massive earthquake at the moment.

Just heard from my uncle they are all OK but very frightened.

My cousin is at work in the centre, her boss has disappeared, and so she is in charge of all the staff (about 35 people) they have all been told to stay where they are.

Her DH and their 3 kids are at home in suburbs and are all OK too.

Thank you for your concern Mners. Best wishes to anyone still awaiting news.

What a relief Candleshoe

To try and bring a bit of lightness to this grim situation- I've just seen footage inside a shop, presumably taken a reasonable time after the initial shock as some cleaning up is being undertaken, and there is a row of evenly spaced female staff, all bracing the alcohol aisle shelving units!

Priorities, see! I can only assume they are MNetters

Thoughts and prayers to all those who are suffering.

erebus That reminds me of when my Mum fell in the sheep dip - she held her £2000 gold watch out of the poison as she went right under!

Must be in female genes!

One thing that I have been interested to see, mind, is how the staff seen inside their shaking offices are trying to stop tech. kit falling- I suppose to stop it falling on themselves, rather than to save it from damage, but, in NZ, they're taught to dive under their desks.

Right i have spoken to someone who used to work in thenuclear industry in the uk.

The declaration of a nuclear emergency is a legal requirement if there is something that is going on that has the potential to be problematic. Once this has been done it is important to implement the emergency plan which requires the evacuation of people. This was implemented in the wake of chenobal when people werent evacuated in time because it was thought controlable.

The situation in the reactor in question is that the colant pumps have had problems with electricity supply. this can be simple time delay which causes the temp to rise a bit above ideal due to the delay or could be problems with elctricity supply. As long as their backup generators are functioning then this should be perfectly controlable. At worst we are looking at a long island incident NOT a repeat of chenobal. However, the person who i spoke to thinks that whilst it is concerning there is no reason to panic unless you are the person running around like a blue arsed fly being yelled at by line managers, managent teams and politicians because you are unlikely to get a lunch or pee break.

PLease try not to panic too much about this at this time. It is a concern, but the warnings and evatuations are totally normal. They do not in their own right mean disater. It means the highest care and attention to the safety of people in an evident were there is the possiblity of risk.

HTH.

Just heard again from my brother in Tokyo - we seem to be getting different news reports here than they are there.

They are camping out in their living room as per earthquake instructions ( less to fall on their heads ) but still seem to have internet and cell phone coverage.

Its the aftershocks now and the concerns that there is a bigger one to come. I know in Tokyo they have been talking about "the Big One' for years. Too scary, I want them to come back to the UK now, in fact I want to go and get them now.

BBC reporting 88,000 THOUSAND missing.

Can't even comprehend that figure.

Thanks for the nuclear info Gone , it is such a worry for everyone .

Piste , it must be awful for you being so far away from them , good that you are able to be in close contact .

Sorry I mean the three island incident not long island.

Keeping close eye on this though and will keep in touch with my contact. It is hard because they are not repeating the report coverage with the expert who was explaining the situation. I am sure he said it was malfunctioning not failed. But SKynews website is overloaded and I find the BBC tends to doom and gloom stuff focusing on the personal aspects. Tv is slowing scrolling through all the different aspects. will let you know if i find anything else out.

DH got the initial tsunami alert, then we were able to speak to my SIL after about two hours. They are fine unlike many, but she had to go and collect her 6 year old twins from nursery school and it wasn't initally safe to leavethe school because of things falling/risk of falling. I can't bear to think of them being frightened

Doom and gloom = worst case senerio with events. Not that focusing on the personal aspect is doom and gloom. It is what most people what to know about so very valid.

Sorry brain in 101 directions atm

It does make sense that they would be put on red alert as soon as something like this happens . And I presume the evacuation area would be much bigger then 2k if they thought there was any real danger .

Friend is trying to reach his friends so whoever posted about the google people finder. Thank you. He found a few via that and has been able to locate them all now. Luckily safe but v v scared.

thankyou gone. An interesting insight.

Sorry, a friend was not is.

Right just caught news:

it appears to be a malfunction which has interrupted function rather then a complete breakage of the coolant system.

Have school run and away from news and computer for rest of evening. Will keep my fingers crossed for loved ones and the situation.

There isn't likely to be another big earthquake, the Earth has done it's worst for now and is now settling, hence the aftershocks.

There's still be an ongoing tsunami threat as you don't need a particularly big earthquake to cause one (a 'decent' sized after-shock could), it depends entirely on the topography of the ocean above the epicentre of the earthquake.

But with an earthquake that big, aftershocks could be over 7 on the Richter scale, which is still pretty big by anyone's standards. I think the Christchurch earthquake the other week was technically an aftershock from the one before Christmas.

Gawd, horrible footage on the BBC but I can't turn the channel over.

My PIL are in Osaka, FIL was on a plane due to land at Narita as the quake hit so it was sent straight back to Hokkaido.

Lots of friends in the Tokyo area - thank goodness for Skype and Facebook. Still waiting for a few people to check in tho :(

Flying visit. forgot to shut computer down so able to post this:

They have just reported that coolant is being pumped into the reactor. Seems cooling system is backup.

Good to hear the reactor is under control.

However I heard a very worrying news report from a Japanese reporter earlier talking about a massive fire engulfing one of the cities in the region that was hit. She said she had seen a photograph for the air which covered an area of 4 square kilometres and the whole of it was essentially burning out of control.

She went on to say that Tokyo was entirely destroyed in 1923 due to a fire after an earthquake.

in the 1923 earthquake the houses were still very close together, wood and paper (I assume nowadays they are fire-retardant) and everyone cooked on stoves which caused fires when they were knocked over. I wonder how the fires are starting this time round.