I was 14 years old... I didn't (& still don't really) watch the news.

There's a girl in Japan I always try to watch on Live Nico. I dubbed her "Idol Girl" due to her enjoyment of dancing, singing, voices, jokes & playing instruments. Watching her broadcasts even though I don't understand most of what she says is a highlight.

I just found her stream for about a minute. She's okay which relieved me greatly. What I saw had her covering her face with a mask and crying heavily. It felt like someone was stabbing me in the soul.

Sorry, I don't know. But if you can't reach her by phone, etc., don't worry too much. It's currently almost impossible to get through to people as the phone lines are overloaded. Too many people are trying to make calls and the exchanges simply cannot meet demand.

I suggest you try email and give it a day or two for them to reply. Of course, the phones should be back to normal by then too so you could try calling then. Also note that for the majority, warning systems here are pretty good. So chances are, if they were in the path of a Tsunami, they would have evacuated.

I hope you get through to your friend, and if I do hear sommat about that area, I'll let you know.

EDIT: Looking at the Tsunami info on NHK, Ehime is near an area with a large Tsunami warning still in effect, so I suspect they've been evacuated as that's pretty much the standard response to such a warning (depending on exactly where they are located -- I don't know, the warnings aren't that precise on TV as the image is rather small).

Mother Nature has been very angry of late, and I blame it primarily on the corporate greed of the last century whose philosophy has been "Can't we just do it until we need glasses?"

A little cryptic, I know, but still pretty accurate if you catch my meaning.

Well the large tsunami alert is still valid for the next 12 hours anyway, which doesn't mean that a new tsunami will happen, or won't. But I agree with you, the alert system here is top-notch, so there are good hopes peoples are evacuated on time.

Thankyou both for the reassurance, ive emailed her and messenged her on fb, a text and managed to get through to her work, they apparently got off lightly but she didnt turn up to teach her class today so they're going to look up her address from the paper records and send someone to checkon her, seems a strange thing to do at midnight ish local time

Gas prices have zero to do with the debt levels, thats mostly due to the oil shocks of Libya's civil war and other reasons, US cannot control the supply of oil at all. Unemployment is not really due to the debt either, that's mostly because the banks over leveraging and the housing market crashing, so again, not due to debt. Same with wages. The debt level can cause long-term effects like a deflationary issues that Japan is facing, but none of the current problems have been caused by it.

Also, my wife has family in Odawara, not in the impact zone but everyone there is fine, so that's good news.

Crazy tsunami video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8OJbPZ211o

Seems like the natural thing to do to me given the circumstances. But I'm sure she'll turn out to be fine.

I live in Portland, and the Oregon coast has already been evacuated as a precaution. Doubt it'll get hit with a Tsunami, but after what happened when the Indonesia quake hit back in 04, I guess you can't be too careful.

Glad to see the Japanese gog'ers are ok, but sad to hear of all the deaths. I guess you can't make buildings completely earthquake proof.

The Boxing Day Tsunami was especially devastating because of a lack of a warning system for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, people have time to move far enough away from the water in most cases if warned when, or shortly after, the earthquake strikes.

These are really far far away from north east coat. So they should be fine.

Thanks to the japanses building construction codes and the really great working emergency system the number of casualties was much much lower than in most other countries.

You do realize that there are US military installations in Japan, right? They're already on the spot and it's only common decency for us to offer the aid of our troops who are over there to dig people out, etc.

My condolences to the people in japan.
I wish you all the very best and i am certain that you will overcome the many hardships of this tragedy.