Contour Quake News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Of fire, not in tokyo, but just adjacent to tokyo. i believe in a factory. there are sporadic effects of this earthquake. not just in miyagi prefecture. >> but you're not seeing any immediate signs of injuries, people on the streets, stretchers, things like that? >> no. although there have been reports that -- maybe the stampede, people are being treated by medical workers, by ambulances. >> arata, i want to ask if you can stand by. obviously, because you're bringing a wealth of information from tokyo. but i want to bring in a geophysicist with the national weather center. obviously being able...

Greater energy is because the -- because you have so much longer a fault. and i would think about 400 miles at least would have been on top of an earthquake this size. >> real quick, i just want to bring people in. if they're just tuning in, it is 2:51 here on the east coast. we're bringing you live pictures out of japan where there has been an 8.9 quake off the northeastern coast, about two and a half hours north of tokyo, where there were reports there in tokyo, that buildings shook, that workers on a busy friday, as you can imagine, it was 2:46 local time in the afternoon, on a busy friday,...

We want to get an idea from you, can you put this in perspective, 8.9 quake off the coast of japan? >> it's one of the largest, probably one of the largest earthquakes in the history of seismolo seismology. the preliminary magnitudes were 7.9, then about like 25 to half an hour later, as more information became available, it was updated to an 8.8. the latest update is actually an 8.9. that's probably the largest earthquake than we saw in chile, which was an 8.8. >> it's my understanding that that increase of an estimation from a 7.9 is ten times worse. >> roughly speaking, yes. basically since...

Know from other earthquakes, especially the one in new zealand, one of the things that really hampered rescue efforts was aftershocks. and we already know 30 minutes after the initial quake, that a magnitude 7.4 quake struck. that was 30 minutes later. what kind of risk are we seeing of that now? >> whenever we see an earthquake of this magnitude, you know, and in the upper crust, basically which is what's happening, this is exactly the type of behavior we're going to expect from the earth's crust. we're going to have aftershocks. we're going to see large aftershocks associated with this event...

A tsunami wave, and as i watched it, i was waiting for it to come onshore. it did not. it looks like it just sort of stopped short of that. what does that tell you about any possible further, or any other tsunami wave that could strike? >> well, my area is earthquakes, the people at the tsunami center can tell you. >> let me ask you about the quake then. if it's an 8.9 quake, it's my understanding that this struck underwater. is that your understanding as well? >> that is correct. that is the reason we're seeing a tsunami. >> put into perspective for us how that -- it was shallow. so why we're...