damage reports now coming in. people trapped under homes. and now it starts. sad.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298755,00.html
TOKYO — Scientifically, it’s almost a sure thing — Tokyo is awaiting a catastrophic earthquake. In fact, it’s long overdue.
And when it does hit, officials say, there is one other thing that is a near certainty — hundreds of thousands of people will be in need of shelter that the government will not be able to provide. Studies show as many as 3 million will be homeless, some 600,000 more than shelters can now handle.
But with little space for new facilities, the city is hoping to cut down those numbers — and the number of deaths and injuries — by providing residents with the world’s first wide-scale earthquake alert system, which became operational on Monday.
The city is hoping that, with its extremely high population density and little space available to build new shelters, giving residents more information and even a slight heads up will cut down on confusion, mitigate the secondary damage caused by fires and encourage them to plan ahead for how to cope and where to go.
The new warning system uses data provided by the Meteorological Agency, which maintains an intricate network of sensors deep underground nationwide that estimate the intensity of a quake as soon as the ground ruptures.
The system works by detecting primary waves, which spread from the epicenter of a quake and travel faster than the destructive shear waves.
When primary waves of a certain intensity are detected, the alarms are set off as much as 30 seconds ahead of the shear waves.
Public broadcaster NHK will relay the warning almost instantaneously to its television and radio audience.
The alert system was launched at 9 a.m. Monday at the Japan Meteorological Agency, said Akiko Takahashi, an agency spokeswoman. Transport Ministers Tetsuzo Fuyushiba attended a ceremony at the agency, where he turned on the switch to launch the system.
The alert will be broadcast on NHK’s television and radio, as well as major network TV stations in Tokyo, she said. So far there have been no troubles reported, Takahashi said.
Prayers for the welfare of all those affected by the quake.