Watch how fast the water moves across the land and roadways. I'm looking around for some closer video footage. If anybody finds any, post it.

that's scarey, the speed in which it causes that amount of devastation is frightening, i'm sending out positive thoughts & best wishes to all affected, there needs to be some international aid there now

Here a video of the water up close.

The death toll in in Japan's northeastern Miyagi prefecture — one of the areas worst affected by a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami — will likely exceed 10,000, police said Sunday.

Miyagi police spokesman Go Sugawara said Sunday that the prefecture's police chief told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths in the prefecture was more than that figure.

There were only 379 officially confirmed deaths in Miyagi out of a total of 801 as of Sunday afternoon.

Millions of people were without drinking water, electricty or adequate food Sunday following Friday's disaster.

Thousands of survivors huddled over heaters in emergency shelters through a second freezing night.

Japan's government ordered 100,000 troops to join the rescue and recovery effort.

Adding to the country's woes, there were presumed partial meltdowns at two quake-hit nuclear reactors and problems at a third.

Read the rest of the article

Unbelievable footage that we are seeing, absolutely unstoppable force.

Quite a few times I have seen vidoe of the water hitting land with cars still driving on nearby roads, can you imagine what was going through the minds of the vehicle occupants then?

You can combine to the strength and size of all the martial artists, wrestlers and boxers in the world and they would still get crushed like an ant in a milli-second, absolutely awesome in a bad way.

just think what a wave can do to you on the beach , pick u up and dump you on the shore like a toy. Imagine a wave with a momentum of millions and millions of tons miles wide and long and deep. Water, wind, mother Nature she just rules things.

I just read a good story though about a 60 year old man found on the roof of his house 10 miles out to sea!!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/13/japan-tsunami-survivor-shinkawa-rescued-fukushima

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-2011/beforeafter.htm

this set of photos is pretty shocking- aerial views of the towns , beofre and after. Click your mouse key on them and drag across. Its unbelievable,entire towns just gone.

Already had some bell ends making jokes on facebook etc, needless to say they were deleted.
It's horrifying watching the videos and I feel for anyone who has had to go through an ordeal like that. We all have moments when we complain about living where we do, but something like this makes you thank God that we are so fortunate!

i agree Sam, it pisses me off a lot when people make fun of this type of thing. if there mother/father/friends/kids/pets etc were there and killed im sure they would think twice about coming up with sick jokes!

10,000 death toll in only one area is heartbreaking. I just cannot imagine how people cope with this. but then that is the great thing about people, they do cope and they carry on and rebuild and help each other.

Yeah, I like to think I have a pretty healthy sense of humor, but how anyone could find humor in this tragedy in Japan is beyond me.

Not condoning any of the jokes, but I think that a degree of mortuary humour is essential as a coping mechanism, I, like every other right minded person am appalled at the situation in Japan I have received a couple of text jokes none of which i found particularly funny nor that offensive, I will concede absolutely that many can become vicious however not much you can do, assholes will always be assholes, they are more to be pitied than scolded.

Stevie

Not heard or seen any 'jokes' about it which I am glad about.

Some say that gallows humour is a coping mechanism.

Some live footage as the tsunami was happening...

Wow, here's a ship that rides into the Tsunami wave out at sea.

This one is scary. You can hear a woman scream as a building is being pulled away by the water. It sounds like she is inside the building. I'm sure the guy operating the camera didn't know if his building was going to crumble too.

terrible

Yeah I just evacuated from Japan a few weeks ago. Feel a slight heartache every time I see the news. Love that country but there were a lot of serious problems even before the 9.0 earthquake on March 11. For those of you who've decided to stay in Japan, all power to you!

Glad you're safe.

What were the problems before the earthquake?

And how close were you to the tsunami damage or the nuclear power plants?

And then today, Japanese officials raise the severity level of their nuclear crisis from 5 to 7, which is the same category as Chernobyl. So far, the radiation leaked is about 10% of the amount as Chernobyl, but Chernobyl was a 1-time event while the Japanese reactors have been leaking for a month and continue to leak. It could exceed Chernobyl through accumulated radiation leakage if it is not fixed.


Death toll from the tsunami is over 13,000 with more people still missing.

Before the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disasters Japan was already going through some tough economic challenges. A lot of it was related to the fact that they have a growing aging population, and a very small young workforce to contribute enough to support this aging population in health, pension and taxes.

Couple that with a few Toyota recalls these past few years, which resulted in shutting down the factories for a few days and that greatly affected the economy for the whole city of Nagoya which in turn had a domino effect in the bankruptcies of over 200 bars and local restaurants, and also slowed down or bankrupted car parts businesses that heavily relied on Toyota's business.

This past month Toyota had to shut down their operations for all of their Japanese factories for 3 weeks. That's never been done before. Soon they will open a few of them and only operate at half capacity in order to help supply Tokyo with enough electric power. They're not alone, all the other major Japanese companies are doing the same thing. I'm afraid to imagine what effect this will have even within 6 months. But I'll hope for the best, and I actually just bought a (cheap) Lexus to show my support from far away. I used to work in Toyota and I taught many engineers and factory workers there and it's hard to see them go through hard times. They're incredibly bright people and they work hard.

As for those wishing to live in Japan and train in martial arts, the prospects are somewhat bleak. If you have independent means and just want to enjoy the training and Japanese culture, the south area of Japan is safe and there are many talented Japanese martial arts masters there. Particularly in Kyoto, Osaka, and Fukuoka.

But if you're looking for a job as an English teacher to support yourself while living in Japan, be careful. The salaries are getting lower, the demand is also less than before, and the overall Japanese economy is not so strong.

There some good jobs but they're not advertised online, and there's a huge number of qualified candidates competing for a few spots at private schools, where you actually get paid vacations, and contributions to health/pension through the employer. Other than that, you have to work hard at other places typically during the evening, which is prime time for training...

To illustrate what I mean by the aging population crisis in Japan, take a look at this site and pay particular close attention to the age of the deceased from the tsunami. The tsunami was lightening fast - made no difference how young or old or weak or strong you were, it simply engulfed anything in its path.

http://www.police.pref.fukushima.jp/shinsai/shinsaimeibo.htm

年齢=ねんれい="nenrei" = age (look at the numbers below this column)

Wow, I didn't realize things were that bad in Japan. I knew the Toyota recalls were difficult, but I didn't realize they had to shut down the factories.

An update on the nuclear plants:
They are using robots sent from the US to work on them to prevent more radiation exposure to employees. I thought it was odd that they would need to use American-made robots since Japan is known for their robotic expertise (lots of videos on Youtube about Japan-made robots).

Yes. The U.S. government has encouraged all the major U.S. media outlets not to make big headlines about Japan anymore, to be careful not to be too sensationalistic about what's happening in regards to radiation risks.

This is an interesting link to a New York Times article about how the U.S. military helped clean up Sendai Airport:

"Quietly, U.S. Troops Help Reopen Japanese Airport"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/world/asia/14sendai.html