BE OKAY, JAPAN.

[whynot]

Japan earthquake, 8.9 on the Richter, TSUNAMI, approx 300 dead. It has hit North America. Watch it live on BBC.

- The American Red Cross is taking donations.
- If you are in the US, texting 90999 to REDCROSS donates $10.
- Person Finder: Japan Earthquake 2011. If you are looking for or have information about people in Japan affected by the earthquake, try here. It's currently tracking 7200 records.
- help_japan. ETA: help_japan, not a DW mirror.

What is the deal with the increased frequency of geological disaster in recent years? What causes that? I'm looking at this list of killer quakes in the past century, and while I am irritated that last October's Indonesia double whammy has been left out, the list still shows a worrying trend. Why is our planet going tectonically insane? What the hell is going on?

Hang in there, Japan.

Comments

[lady_songsmith]

Part of it is the density effect - there's a lot more of us than there were a century ago, and we're a lot more urban, which means localized disasters do more damage, and thus show up on "deadliest" lists. That said, it HAS been a nasty decade (~400 major events, as opposed to 250-300) (check out http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/struts/form?t=101650&s=1&d=1 )

[twoskeletons.livejournal.com]

Good point on population density. Thanks for the link. That'll be interesting to click around with.