Still having a hard time grasping the scale of the earthquake in Japan. Most of the news in California is focused on the nuclear power plants at Fukushima, but the following struck me about the earthquake:

• it was one of the top 10 biggest earthquakes ever recorded
• the main island is now 8 ft to the east
• the axis of planet shifted 4 inches
• an Earthquake Early Warning system gave Tokyo ~60seconds advance warning
• over 10,000 confirmed dead, with another 17,000 still missing
• a 4month old baby found alive in the wreckage
• a 60 year old man rescued from his floating house roof, 10 miles out at sea
• a dog rescued from sea after 3 weeks on floating house roof
• and a dolphin rescued from a paddy field a mile inland

Its great to see Wikipedia and GoogleCrisisResponse spreading timely information, which is really important in situations like this.

This is two weeks later.

We get earthquakes here too, which raises the question: if an earthquake happened here in the bay area, could you be fully self-sufficient for at least 72hours? San Francisco Dept of Emergency Management has setup http://72hours.org to help people prepare.

UPDATED: added today’s story about the dog. Searching building wreckage is dangerous, more so when its floating at sea, so I’ve lots of respect for the people continuing to do this day after day. joduinn 02apr2011.