Yeah true. TO be fair I knew Japan was gonna have a huge earthquake anytime soon or in the next few years, because they didn't have a huge one (by Japan standards) for years. 14 years ago there was a 5.2 earthquake at Cap-Rouge (not too far from here) and while it wasn't strong but the shaking was rather scary. It was worse north of the river, apparently, due to the different type of rock.

WUT I just calculated the energy of the earthquake in kWh: turns out to be 3.92371539*10^11 kilowatt hours!!
And HOMER: I hope they are all right...
I also hope that it turns out right with that nuclear plant that is on fire, and that its not gonna be like Chernobyl...

EDIT:
It looks like its turning out well:

'No leakage after Japan nuclear explosion'
Saturday, March 12, 2011 3:13 p.m.

It seems that no leakage occurred in the reactor of the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima, 250 kilometers north of Tokyo.

There is probably no radiation released, says the Japanese government
- LATEST NEWS -
3:16 p.m. hours: Of about 9,500 inhabitants of the Japanese city Minamisanriku still lacking any trace. It is nearly half the inhabitants of the town.

1:32 p.m. hours: The Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Saturday visited the area most affected . Can fly for hours with a helicopter including the nuclear power plant in Fukushima.

12:11 pm: Japanese rescue in the coastal town Rikuzentakata hundreds of corpses found .

11:26 pm: The evacuation area around the power plant has grown from a circle of ten to twenty kilometers of a circle around the plant.

That the Japanese government reported Saturday.

At the nuclear plant was caused by the tsunami an explosion , making the roof and walls of the building collapsed. Several employees were injured.

Radiation
"The nuclear reactor is surrounded by a steel casing, which in turn is surrounded by a concrete building," says a government spokesman.

"The concrete building has collapsed. We find that the steel casing is not exploded. " The housing is designed to in case of incidents that radiation is released .

Saturday Night (Dutch time) it was announced that the reactor might be working on a meltdown. This is the case if the reactor core due to lack of cooling is so hot that it melts into the ground, a nuclear disaster.

Risk
The earthquake is the cooling of the reactor failed, causing the pressure in the reactor increases. If radioactive material released is probably blown out to sea.

Japanese who are around are summoned to remain indoors. Those who do venture out, a wet cloth for his or her mouth.

The GOP is the Republican party in the U.S. But lets try not to turn this into a discussion about politics.

So far everyone I know doesn't think the situation is funny, and I'm glad to know that.  Even at the beginning of a Starcraft II semi-finals, one of the commentators said "Okay, so I know we do lots of joking here, but I'm being very serious right now.  Japan, we are really sorry about what happened, and we hope things will turn out all right."

The GOP is the Republican party in the U.S. But lets try not to turn this into a discussion about politics.

exactly.  this is a disaster, a time for helping each other out and rebuilding -- not to argue over whether or not the Republicans are right.

anyways, yeah I believe it's kind of between an 8.8 and an 8.9, so just refer to it as either for now.  Also, we can only pray that the list of the dead will stay fixed.  The thing is, these tsunamis come in to shore at speeds up to 600 miles per hour -- almost the speed of a simple jet plane, a bullet, speed of sound etc.  A 1 foot wave will kill anything in it's way going at that speed.  I think Japan's was much slower than that, but the height of it makes it just as devastating.

Also, kinda on topic, apparently the larger the waves, the slower they go.  the fastest tsunami was around 3 inches high and went around 750 miles per hour, near India (died out in sea, was detected by instruments) and the highest ever was 1720 feet high (about 700 feet taller than the Eiffel tower, and comparable to the empire state building) in Alaska in the late 1800's, killed no one (though only went about 50 miles per hour)

Anyways, lets hope the best for Japan. 

I never knew that slower tsunamis were bigger, I thought they all went at around 500mph.

800km/h i think it was but it slowed dramatically when it got to land about 50km/h. still disastrous, people had no chance of escaping, combined with the earthquake and 100+ aftershocks, unbelieveable. The satellite footage showed whole cities annhiliated! just a death land or something.

Just one of the many disasters and major events that have occured in 2011: For more go here: http://ourl.ca/9657.new#new