tsunamis

Almost 3,000 residents near the Fukushima I nuclear power plant 170 miles northeast of Tokyo are evacuating the area after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake triggered a power outage that left a cooling system unable to supply water to cool the reactor. Radiation levels in the control room rose to 1,000 times above normal levels, Marketwatch reports.

Some radiation has now leaked outside the plant, Public Broadcaster NHK quoted nuclear safety officials as saying, with levels just outside the main gate measured eight times the normal level.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that residents have been instructed … Read more

Early today, an 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit the coast of northern Japan, spawning aftershocks and a tsunami that swept across the region.

There are a number of outstanding online resources that are delivering solid information, up-to-date data, and forecasts on how the world will be affected.

CNN Live Blog: CNN is tracking all the events surrounding the earthquake and tsunami with a live blog. It's currently providing up-to-date information on all the news coming out of Japan as the country tries to address the impact of the natural disaster.

Reuters Live Coverage: Reuters is providing a … Read more

Update at 4:13 p.m., 8:45 a.m., and 9:20 a.m. PT: Information on surges and waves, harbor damage and state of emergency, missing person added.

The San Francisco Bay Area braced this morning for a tsunami in the aftermath of an 8.9 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan overnight, but only small surges came in the morning and damage appeared limited to boats and docks.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties to the south of San Francisco and Del Norte and Humboldt counties in the … Read more

Beyond the widespread damage and loss of life, the earthquake and tsunamis that hit Japan today are having an effect on technology and electronics companies in the country.

Japan plays a central role in the high-tech and consumer electronics industries, home to heavyweights such as Sony, Toshiba, and Nintendo. Many U.S. and European tech companies also have significant offices and operations in Japan. Overall, Japanese factories produced $216 billion worth of electronics last year, according to market analysis firm IHS iSuppli. That includes 16.5 percent of worldwide consumer electronics factory revenue.

All those companies are still in the … Read more

Japanese dam builder Hitachi Zosen has developed a seawater barrier that deploys automatically when tsunami waves approach shorelines.

The Neo Rise barrier is a form of floodgate designed to prevent damage from tsunamis, floods, and storm surges brought on by typhoons.

It's based on Hitachi's air-powered flap gates, which lie at the bottom of harbors and close them off in the event of a major change in sea level.

Neo Rise (from "no energy, no operation, rising seawall") is set up on land. It runs on hydraulic power associated with riding tides and closes automatically, protecting … Read more

Typically, natural disasters come with little advance notice. But after a massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, much of the Pacific coast, including Hawaii, came under tsunami watch over the course of the day. That makes this was one time when the news media is poised to catch it all on film.

It may, in fact, be the first time that the developments leading to a potential natural disaster has been broadcast live in this way.

Of course, these days that means streaming on the Web, too; searching live-streaming site Ustream for "tsunami" will bring up … Read more

Ice storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, landslides, wildfires, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis are just some of the forces of nature that can wreak havoc on the lives of untold thousands in a period of seconds, minutes, days, or months. As global temperatures rise and as a growing human population expands into more and more areas less and less suited for either habitation or rescue, the average person in the world (one of 6+ billion) faces an increasing likelyhood that he or she will face a real disaster that seriously disrupts possible response.

Consider the plight of Sri Lanka, which was devastated by a tsunami in 2004. According to a BBC eyewitness reporter:

There are no kind of emergency services here, there are no helicopters thumping through the sky to come to save people. It is a do-it-yourself rescue.

The final tally reported more than 40,000 dead and a staggering 2.5 million displaced. And from the report's summary: "Waves as high as six meters had crashed into coastal villages, sweeping away people, cars, and even a train with 1,700 passengers." Whatever infrastructure may have existed prior to the tsunami, it was completely overwhelmed by both the magnitude of human need and the destructive power of the disaster. Within hours, open-source software developers created the Sahana project, and within days, their home-grown solution was doing more to help the Sri Lankan people than first-world conventional software packages did in far less extreme circumstances. And now it is doing even more, with the One Laptop Per Child hardware platform.… Read more

We now know a lot about tsunamis that we didn't know a few years ago. There's even been significant research showing how hurricanes and tsunamis can act alike once onshore. Today, we learn a little more about a tsunami that occurred 400 years ago.

Scientists now conclude that it was a tsunami that flooded the Bristol Channel in western England. It flooded hundreds of square miles and scoured the landscape, killing about 2,000 people. And that was on January 30, 1607. Long before anybody in England ever heard the word "tsunami." At the time, it … Read more