80,000????? OMG!!!
I have a sinking feeling the final count is going to make the Sumatra quake pale in comparison.
It doesn’t sound good when the say the city was “destroyed”. I hope they just mean damagaged. The Japanese are WAY more advanced than most countries when it comes to building stuff for EQ. But a tsunami is more difficult to build for.
The Pacific coastal areas are MUCH better prepared for the tsunami warnings than the Indonesian/Thailand/India region - so hopefully deaths around the ocean will be few. The tsunami is what killed so many in the Sumatra quake. BUT, I imagine that there are many small villages on small islands that will have no warning.
Sad to think that here we can sit at our PC and monitor tidal gauges and ocean bouys to track the tsunami (if we wanted to), or at least monitor the news, while many of those that will be affected have no clue what is about to hit them. Prayers for everyone.