Lawrence Person's Futuramen

Some quick Sendai earthquake/tsunami updates:

Current death toll estimate is 1,700. By way of comparison, remember that the 2010 Haiti earthquake killed 316,000 and the 2004 Indonesian tsunami killed 230,210. First world infrastructure, building codes and warning systems matter a lot.

Stratfor is reporting that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant “appears” to have melted down. I have not seen confirmation of this elsewhere. Even if true, it does not mean there has been a core breach, much less a containment breach. And the Christian Science Monitor is saying otherwise.

Little electricity and no water in Sendai.

The Washington Post has a live update blog.

Up-close footage of the tsunami coming into the city I haven’t seen before:

Close footage of the tsunami surge moving into a city:

More close tsunami footage:

More Sendai aftermath footage:

Some cognitive dissonance in this Russia Today video: The footage is mainly the burning natural gas plant, while the voiceover discusses the nuclear plant failsafe issues:

More burning natural gas footage, along with a discussion of other nation’s tsunami preparations:

For other videos I’ve put up from the earthquake/tsunami, start here or just go scrolling back through the videos I’ve put up the last couple of days.

Howard Waldrop and I have to review Battle: Los Angeles for Locus Online, so between that and my usual Saturday obligations, I’m not sure if I’ll have time to do too many more updates today.

Tags: earthquake, Fukushima Daiichi, Japan, meltdown, nuclear, Sendai, tsunami, video

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 12th, 2011 at 11:47 AM and is filed under video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.