course, have a normally higher earthquake than we design for in this country. we appreciate your insights and your expertise on this challenge for the japanese government and the japanese people tonight. we hope we can keep in touch with you as this plays out. when we come back, the science behind tsunamis. why earthquakes cause them and how we ve learned to measure and predict them. first, take a look. more dramatic pictures from early saturday. in 18 hours after the earthquake hit. fires still burning. when it s planes in the sky for a chain of supply, that s logistics when the parts for the line come precisely on time that s logistics a continuous link, that is always in sync that s logistics
out, we have more from hong kong. kristi, it is encouraging to begin to see the search and rescue operations. the question we can t answer yet, though, what is the size. what is the scope of the challenge facing not only the japanese authorities but all the international help now coming their way? it is very encouraging to see live pictures of the rescue operation in sendai, the area in northeastern japan, most affected by the earthquake and resulting tsunami. this is already about 18 hours after the initial 8.9-magnitude quake struck. already we re looking at live pictures, confirmation that help is there on the scene. but perhaps not soon enough. now let s go to our kyung lah, traveling en route to the epicenter of the earthquake from tokyo. and on the road, what are you seeing? reporter: what we re seeing as we get closer and closer is that you can see the cracks in the houses. some of the roofs have cracked off the houses.
this was very violent and very long. it is now morning in japan. roughly 9:30 a.m. in the morning. of course, the epicenter of this disaster is in the northeast in sendai, but they re in the capital city in tokyo are you seeing any clear evidence of damage, destruction from the earthquake? i ll tell you, right now i m on the way to the airport. we ve just crossed over from tokyo metropolitan area into chiba prefecture, and i m seeing the first damage that i have encountered. the road is buckled. there s water coming up through the pavement, and it s contributing to the horrible traffic jam. there are just endless lines of cars on every side street headed from the city out to the airport. there s a state of emergency in place at the fukushima nuclear power plant, which i understand is 150 miles north of tokyo. now, evacuations are underway, but only within a couple miles radius there at the plant. are citizens in tokyo on edge on
challenge? from what i saw they had brought portable power in, so they ll continue in this vein until they get more power in. without any power at all, the next challenge wouldn t come for, oh, a day or two anyway. help the lehman who doesn t understand how this works. when there s an earthquake, there s a trigger. they re automatically shut down. then if you lose power, describe the cooling challenge essentially and the fact of how hot the core would be and what why it s so important to cool it down. the reactor core when the chain reaction stops, the pieces that are split atom are radioactive, and they give off their radioactivity that generates heat. it s like microwaving the things around, it you might say. that keeps increasing over time,
they spend a huge amount of money, tens of billions of dollars they spend on disaster prevention because they have just one natural disaster after another, and it s half the people are living on land that is either at sea level or below sea level, so there s a great public emphasis and interest on investing in this. would you never get a mandate for this level of public investment and disaster infrastructure like you have here. if the japanese can t get it right, then one has to not have very much hope. they have sensors planted, you know, hundreds of sensors that are planted to pick up early warnings. this particular quake wasn t picked up early for various reasons, which are just coming to light, but normally you do get a heads-up before a major earthquake is coming. tsunami information is usually quite good. it s broadcast to you on tv. all the tv stations are constantly running tsunami