A magnitude-8.8 earthquake hit off the coast of Japan near Miyagi prefecture at 2:46 p.m. local time today (a little over an hour ago), followed by a 7.4-magnitude aftershock about 30 minutes later. The earthquake triggered a 13-foot tsunami that wiped out cars along Miyagi’s coast.
Much of Japan’s northeast coast has been affected. Live footage on Fuji TV shows large fires in Chiba, near Tokyo, with ominous clouds of black and gray smoke obscuring the afternoon sky. Live footage from Sendai airport shows a wild river where there was once a runway. Most trains in Tokyo are stopped. People stuck under steel racks at their offices in Tokyo are posting cries for help on Twitter. A friend in Sapporo, on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, felt the shocks and took shelter under a desk.
I was leaving work right as the earthquake hit, but I felt nothing here in Okayama in central Japan.
The earthquake comes after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit off the coast in the same region on Wednesday.
More details as they come in…
UPDATE, Mar. 12: It turned out the man who claimed to be trapped under a steel rack at his office and posting for help on Twitter was making a sick joke. Perhaps someday he really will have an accident and require help, and no one will take him seriously, and I’m sure there will be some lesson to be learned in it.