Legal Commentary

8.9 Earthquake and Tsunami Hit Japan

By Jeralyn

Update: 2:45 a.m. MT: Evacuations ordered in Hawaii, see Donald's comments below. Here's a live news stream for night owls. The "hit time" is set for about 3:00 am Hawaii time. Coastal inundation zones are most at risk. If you are in one, it's time to evacuate now. The Mayor of Honolulu is on now and he sounds like everything is under control, all the agencies are working with each other -- including police, fireman planning, hospitals, hotels. "Don't believe the worst is going to happen, but prepare for the worst that could happen." He's very calm. They've prepared for the homeless, the animals at the zoo, etc.

The water system will be shut down on Maui around when the tsunami hits so everyone needs to get water. But things should get back to normal quickly.

A huge earthquake, 8.9 in magnitude, has hit Japan, triggering a massive tsunami.[More...]

There are now tsunami warnings out for the Hawaiian Islands.

Tokyo’s Narita airport shut down, Kyodo News reported. Haneda, the capital’s other main airport, was also closed, NHK said. Tokyo Metro, which has more than 6 million passengers a day, stopped operations on its nine subway lines, while the Shinkansen bullet trains also halted. Tokyo port shut all 19 of its water gates as it prepared for the tsunami.

4 million people in Tokyo are without power. The quake struck 237 miles northeast of Tokyo.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 11, 2011 (boomark / email).