News and Science

The tsunami was generated by a M8.0 earthquake that struck near the town of Lata, on Santa Cruz in Temotu, the easternmost province in the Solomons. Smaller waves were recorded in Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

A U.S environmental group tracking the debris from last year's Japan tsunami said the floating garbage only highlights the increasing severity of ocean pollution.

The study also underscores the fact that a repeat of the most recent Seattle fault quake, dated at about 930 A.D., would be catastrophic for the cities and ports...

Under pressure from critics who have urged the government to act more quickly to address the incoming wave of floating garbage, environment minister...

Pacific Northwest cities have said they don’t have the money to deal with all the tsunami debris that has started washing ashore, and now shipping and fishing industries...

...groups that routinely clean ocean trash from Alaska beaches have reported a difference in the volume and type of debris they're seeing this year, leading them to believe...

Researchers hope to make use of GPS technology on vast commercial fleet traveling seas.

TSUNAMI BULLETIN 

PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
11 APR 2012

THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN.

... AN INDIAN-OCEAN-WIDE TSUNAMI WATCH IS IN EFFECT ...

A TSUNAMI WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR

 INDONESIA / INDIA / SRI LANKA / AUSTRALIA / MYANMAR / THAILAND /
 MALDIVES / UNITED KINGDOM / MALAYSIA / MAURITIUS / REUNION /
 SEYCHELLES / PAKISTAN / SOMALIA / OMAN / MADAGASCAR / IRAN /
 UAE / YEMEN / COMORES / BANGLADESH / TANZANIA / MOZAMBIQUE /
 KENYA / CROZET ISLANDS / KERGUELEN ISLANDS / SOUTH AFRICA /
 SINGAPORE

Only five percent of the rubble from the three prefectures hit by the tsunami last March has been cleaned up. This portion amounts to 1.176 million tons — a vast amount by normal standards, but a drop in the ocean...

...and later this year debris from that event should begin to wash up on U.S. shores – and one question many have asked is whether that will pose a radiation risk. -- The simple answer is, no...

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) Director  announced that the agency is going to put up more sensors in strategic places...

Like a rampaging tsunami, but with more destructive debris that tore up everything in its path. This was how a University of the Philippines geologist described the flash floods that hit Iligan City at the height of Tropical Storm “Sendong” ...

...The latest information concerning the Japan tsunami debris can be found on these two websites which should provide you with the most up to date scientific information and answers to the questions you might have: http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/japanfaqs.html  http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/features/dec11/japan-tsunami-debris.html

Perhaps one of the most iconic images of the tsunami’s wrath was a 30-foot fishing boat thrown a couple of miles inland and perched on top the ruins of a house. Fifty-nine people clung to the boat until the surge passed; all of them survived.

...More than nine months after the disaster, oceonographers have located what is believed to be the first debris washed up onto the shores of the West Coast of the US.

...tsunamis ... can now merge together to form one large tsunami. Data from NASA and European radar satellites captured at least two wave fronts that day the tsunami hit Japan. The fronts merged to form a single, double-high wave far out at sea.

One year before the disaster, two researchers in Japan had asked a representative sample of adults in the country about their perceptions of tsunami risk. A month after the wave hit, the same investigators –...– repeated the survey, ...The results were perplexing.

Bulgarian and Romanian scientists will take part in establishing an early alert system for geological hazards on the two countries' Black Sea coast. The project is financed by EU's cross-border cooperation program...

Experts consider Spain to be at high risk of tsunamis. There is however, no emergency protocol or tsunami warning system in place. An international meeting of 80 representatives from over 40 countries held last week in Santander revealed that if an earthquake like the one that struck Cadiz in 1755...

Following a breakdown in 2007 linked to equipment failure, The Agency For The Assessment And Application Of Technology (BPPT) in cooperation with the government of Australia, has re-launched a tsunami detector in the seas south of Bali.

Japan's economy grew for the first time in four quarters in a comeback from the earthquake and tsunami disaster that already faces multiple global headwinds. The world's No. 3 economy expanded at an annualized rate of 6 percent...

China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) on Thursday held a tsunami-warning drill for testing the country's tsunami defense system. The drill was an integral part of the pan-Pacific exercise -- code-named "Exercise Pacific Wave 11" --

..., but new sonar maps are now helping to show that these risks do exist. For about the past five years, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey, along with other governmental and academic partners, have been gauging the potential for tsunamis generated by landslides in submarine canyons...

On Wednesday, the plant operator of Japan's tsunami-ravaged Fukushima nuclear plant said it had found substances in a reactor which could be the result of nuclear fission. The discovery is a possible setback in attempts to bring the damaged plant to a "cold shutdown",...

Wellington City Council is gearing up for the international tsunami exercise Pacific Wave on Thursday 10 November and wants local schools, childcare centres and businesses to take part too - heading for higher ground if they need to.

This week the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced it predicts debris from the Japanese earthquake-driven tsunami this spring will start washing up on the Oregon coast some time in 2013.

Most of the 16 tsunami-warning machines set up off the coast of Indonesia after the tsunami of 2004 have been damaged beyond repair, German scientists say.

AN EARLY warning system for tsunamis is just one of the developments and areas of interest that the University of Cyprus’ Oceanographic Centre will be involved in under a new agreement signed recently with the company CSnet International,...

An exercise to test the Indian Ocean tsunami alert system that was carried out at five villages in the Kota Kuala Muda district yesterday fell short of expectations. Checks by the New Straits Times showed that there were mixed responses from the villagers, mostly fishermen,...

A large undersea earthquake has struck south of Bali, sending residents and tourists running onto the streets. The earthquake measuring magnitude 6.3 occured at 11.16am, according to the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre.

he Forestry Agency plans to regenerate coastal forests hit by the March 11 tsunami, as research has shown the forests provided defense against the disaster by acting as "natural levees."

A large earthquake offshore in the Puysegur Trench could send a tsunami surging towards the Southland coast before official warnings could be issued. That's the finding from research that Emergency Management Southland commissioned from GNS Science,...

Cutting edge science developed in New Zealand is being used to formulate tsunami evacuation plans for entire Pacific island nations. This comes almost two years after a deadly wall of water struck the east coast of Samoa,...

Amazing footage from a delivery truck's dashboard shows the incredible force of the Japanese tsunami that hit the country in March. The video made the rounds on Twitter over the last couple days...

...Estimates of the debris floating in the ocean range between 10 and 20 million tons. Experts said the debris cloud now stretches 1,000 miles wide. "But, of course, you cannot expect it to be floating forever. Some of it will sink...

Scientists: SoCal shores vulnerable to tsunamis, nuclear disasters ...While much scientific work has focused on mapping on-shore fault systems, “most of our maps don't include anything offshore; it's essentially a black hole,” ...

Researchers say tonnes of debris resulting from the tsunami that struck Japan in March are drifting thousands of kilometres into the Pacific. There are fears the debris could present a hazard to both marine life and shipping vessels.

Members of Congress say the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is moving too slowly on recommendations made after damage to plants in Japan's earthquake and tsunami.

Scientists have discovered evidence that a massive tsunami has hit the eastern coast of Japan every 1,000 years, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper reported on Thursday. Sediment found in strata of a cliff in Kesennuma of Miyagi Prefecture indicates...

... By the time it hit the Antarctic ice shelf — 13,000 km away, taking less than a day — it was well under a meter high. But water is dense (a cubic meter weighs a ton!) and that much of it hitting the ice can cause it to flex and break.

Waves from a tsunami triggered by Japan's catastrophic earthquake slapped the U.S. west coast, causing extensive damage to harbors and piers in California. Waves surging along the coast reached as high as 7 feet.

The giant earthquake that struck Japan this year not only shook the Earth, but also rattled the highest layer of the atmosphere, scientists find. This research could lead to a new type of early warning system for devastating tsunamis and earthquakes.

Only about half of the municipalities along the vulnerable Pacific coast have tsunami evacuation plans. In 2002, the central government asked 197 municipalities in 17 prefectures vulnerable to tsunami generated by Tokai, ...

Japan's massive tsunami on March 11 reached heights of up to 131 feet (40 meters), according to the latest data from Japan's Meteorological Agency. That's the agency's best estimate, but the precise height will likely never be known...

It last happened thousands of years ago. It could happen again today. Crushing pressures locked up beneath the surface are released explosively as the West Tahoe Fault ruptures near South Lake Tahoe.

A 25-year-old graduate student at the University of Tokyo has found a way to determine when tsunami occurred by analyzing fossilized coral. The standard dating method for tsunami is to examine materials deposited on land...

Data stretching back more than a century to be incorporated - The land ministry's regional development bureau for northeastern Japan will compile a map showing areas inundated by major tsunami, including the ones triggered by the March 11 quake,(...).

A wayward fishing trawler has knocked out a key section of the $100-million Neptune Canada observatory on the sea floor off Vancouver Island. The trawler was dragging its giant net across the sea floor -in an area where the fishermen are not supposed to go -and hit one of Neptune's platforms, loaded with costly titanium instruments that monitor everything from earthquakes to tsunamis.

The earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan not only claimed human lives but has also dealt a huge economic blow. The areas badly affected by tsunami contribute about 6.2 percent to the country’s GDP. More specifically, they produce and export agricultural products and sea foods. However, they have lost their markets in Europe, North America, and Australia.

Meltdowns, floods, tornadoes, oil spills, grid crashes — are more things going wrong? In the same way that the 20th century was the century of world wars, genocide, and grinding ideological conflict, the 21st will be the century of natural disasters and technological crises and unholy combinations of the two.

In the rubble of Japan's northeast coast, one small village stands as tall as ever after the tsunami. No homes were swept away. In fact, they barely got wet. Fudai is the village that survived — thanks to a huge wall once deemed a mayor's expensive folly and now vindicated as the community's salvation.

Weathered stone markers recalling the deadly tsunamis of centuries past dot the sawtooth coastline of northeast Japan, serving as silent warnings from the ancestors.[...] Before the 1933 disaster struck in the Japanese year of Showa 8, the small coastal community had also been obliterated in Meiji 29 (1896). The first tsunami left just two survivors, and the second only four.

Associated Press - German-based reinsurer Hannover Re AG says Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami cost it euro232 million ($344 million) - part of a heavy burden of losses from natural disasters that weighed down its earnings.

Inside the chunks of slate and wallboard smashed and scattered by Japan's tsunami hides a health risk that has been overshadowed by contamination from a leaking nuclear plant: the odorless and nearly invisible threat of asbestos. Activists have found the cancer-causing, fibrous material in the air and debris collected from the devastated northeastern coast.

German reinsurer Munich Re has warned investors it will make a loss in the first quarter because of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Claims from an earthquake in New Zealand and a cyclone in Australia will also contribute to the loss.

Seismologists debate whether the recent spate of megaquakes is a statistical fluke or something more.[...] While some scientists argue that these 'megaquakes' could be the vanguard of an extended outburst of strong seismic events, many others suggest that the apparent cluster of recent temblors is nothing more than a statistical fluke.

Latest data suggest a Chernobyl-like effort will be needed.

(...) makes Fukushima a unique challenge. The plant's damaged reactors are home to just under 1,000 tonnes of nuclear fuel and thousands of tonnes of radioactive water (see graphic). Last week, the Toshiba Corporation floated a rough proposal to clean up the site in a decade. But veterans of clean-up operations at sites such as Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania say that it will probably take much longer.

University of Hawaii researches are projecting further impacts here on Hawaii Island from the 9.0 earthquake in Japan. This time, a surge of debris from the destroyed remnants of Japan’s coastal towns are expected to wash ashore in two to five years.