Yup Rick, that's our city turning to rubble, dust, silt and sewage. Very sad. It was such a beautiful city.

Sad indeed, Lynn. Have faith, it and you can and will come back but it will take time.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/03/09/state/n160156S37.DTL

My late father-in-law's mother (who was 100 when I met her) lived through the great San Francisco quake and fire of 1906. We went through the wringer again with the 1989 Loma Prieta quake (luckily smaller than '06). When you're in the thick of it, it doesn't seem as though you'll ever come back, but people are nothing if not resilient.

Best,

Rick

A very large quake off the coast today, followed by a tsunami. Best wishes to our Japanese friends.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2011/usc0001xgp/

Sincerely,

Rick

Edited by halfturbo on 03/11/2011 00:32:41 MST.

WOW Huge one!

Hope You guys are OK!

Prayers are in order. I hope our friends in Japan are ok. Miguel and all, God be near you.

I better get up to Mt. Rainier for some training before it blows too.

Miguel works in Tokyo so he should be fine - but he may have been affected by the temporary closure of the subways. Some of the subways are now operating (I have NHK on satellite).

My wife's family are all accounted for, but lots of people who presumed that they'd be able to use their mobile phones to stay in touch have discovered that they couldn't use them.

By the way, it was an 8.9, so most likely the biggest in Japan for 140 or so years.

Yeah, that was a huge shake. Lucky it was 130 km offshore 'cause having something that big right under a city would be curtains for sure. The tsunami was unlucky. I hope you're all OK.

I just checked Facebook - Miguel was posting a couple of hours after the quake but sounded pretty shaken (no pun intended).

The possibility of an earthquake like that is the main reason why we moved back to Australia - not something I wanted to experience with my children.

Hi Everytone. I can't really write much right now because my apartment is completely trashed, but just to let everyone know we're okay. That was the worst earthquake I've ever experienced and 7 hours later it continues to shake. Tokyo wasn't nearly as bad as Sendai, but outside walls have fallen over and everyone is terrified of another quake coming. No one I know was hurt. As soon as I get back on track I'll let you know how things are. Thanks for all your well wishes and I wish the same to anyone else who has been through this, including Christchurch. The news says that the second tsunami, 10 meters tall is due to hit and many south Pacific countries might be completely encompassed. Very scary. Prayers for all.

Best wishes for all those affected. Glad you are OK Miguel.

"Lynn says:
Rog, thanks for your thoughts. I am amazed a man of science such as youself would take someone like Ken Ring seriously though!"

Like the rest of us trying to fathom the mysteries of Eathquake prediction, Ken Ring is grappling with half formed ideas and half right answers.

.

Good to hear you are OK Miguel!

Thanks for posting, Miguel. We all hope that you remain safe.

"Like the rest of us trying to fathom the mysteries of Eathquake prediction, Ken Ring is grappling with half formed ideas and half right answers"

Undoubtedly. If he put them forward as mere theories instead of predictions, I would find it interesting. However, saying something like for over half of the next four months, there is a risk (how big a risk?) of a major earthquake (how major)? in the South Island of NZ (that's a large area of land!!!). Most anyone in NZ who even took that seriously would assume it would be along our alpine fault line, as that is the known high risk fault. Not even Ring could have predicted the movement of an unknown fault line in Canterbury which hadn't moved for 16,000 years previously. The moon's apogee to the earth doesn't mean an earthquake will happen, and many major earthquakes happen outside of this alignment, so as a predictive tool I find it useless. Should we evacuate all of Canterbury on March 19? Is he sure the earthquake will be in Canterbury rather than on the alpine fault? Or will another new unknown fault makes it's presence known (somewhere, how big and which day exactly).

The Japanese quake could have been best predicted by the rather remarkable sequence pre-quakes in the area in the days before. Even then, it's hard to evacuate entire coastlines based on an unknown quake on an unknown day of unknown magnitude just because you have a cluster of large tremours around one area. Predicting earthquakes the way Ring does is just fear-mongering IMHO.

Jason, no leaving Chch for good. This is my home, the South Island is my playground, and I still have a job to come back to once they fix the 'major structural damage' to the 9 story building I work in. But I'm taking the time off work as an opportunity to go visit family in the USA. Then I'll try to find another job in a nice single level timber framed work place. I really don't want to go back to my old work building, much as I loved my job and colleagues. I gotta say I'm pretty uncomfortable going to SoCal where my family is, what with the San Andreas fault just dieing to give some action...maybe I should check with Ken Ring to see the best time to go???

Miguel,

I am so relieved to know you're safe, and deeply sad for the Japanese people. Let us all hope for the best with the nuclear reactors.

nice to hear you are ok Miguel.....hang in there!

Also, Lynn I am glad to hear that you are ok too....You all will rebuild...we did it with our "smaller" quake...Mother nature is an amazing force!

Well I had a look into the Benandi predictions, helps that I understand Italian....
He indeed accurately predicted at least one major earthquake , however another one of his predictions was discovered (by himself) after the event, in some notes he had written supposedly a year before.

his predictions are based on the gravitational pull of the Moon in conjunction with the planets.

When his theory did not fit the facts , he then "discovered" 4 new gigantic planets past Neptune, which he named Rex,Dux,Roma and Italiano

(yes that was during the fascist era...)

He also discovered another planet between Mercury and the Sun, named by him as Faenza (his home town)

Now with those extra 5 planets, retrospectively, his predictions worked.

Hope that we are all up to speed now with the new solar system.

BTW, the next major Earthquake according to Benandi will be in Rome on the 11th of May this year, followed by "apocalyptic" worldwide earthquakes next year on the 5-6 of April .

Franco

http://scientificando.splinder.com/post/22327827/raffaele-bendandi-e-la-sua-teoria-sismogenica