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probably in earthquake engineering and systems that warn trains and get them to shut down before the seismic waves hit so hopefully those systems worked well for them. >> well, you know, they can build buildings to withstand earthquakes but they haven't figured a way to stop the pacific ocean from doing what it just did right there. >> that's right. >> robert, thank you very much from the u.s. geological survey. >> you're welcome. >> thank you. >> first we heard from the white house. now we have a statement from vice president joe biden on the earthquake and for that, we go to washington live with peter doocy. >> and gretchen, the vice president joe biden is on the back end of a swing through europe today. and before he made a bilateral statement, he talked about what he describes as a mega earthquake and he said "the thoughts and prayers of the american people and i'm sure the moldvan people when we find out
saying from those areas. on the island of guam which i'm also monitoring which is the closest american territory just to the east of me, the -- the governor of guam has reported that the commonwealth. northern marianas north of guam, also american territory, has reported a two foot rise in sea levels. this is in the islands north of guam. so as you can tell, the alerts are going on. people are evacuated and ready for anything to happen in these areas and maintaining a high level of alert. >> mike, of course, japan and the philippines both along the pacific ring of fire, oftentimes when there's an earthquake in one spot, there's an earthquake elsewhere. we understand that apparently there was an earthquake in japan in the overnight hours although they say it's unrelated. are they worried about an earthquake? i know you're worried about a tsunami wave in the philippines but what about an earthquake?
>> he was going to tokyo. a little bit south, going up towards tokyo. >> because the major damage that we're looking at as this tsunami wave rips through a town are to the north of tokyo. >> yes, that's correct. >> there's that tower cam video. that's terrifying. was your father after they stopped the train, did everybody get off? what was happening? >> no, they were stuck inside the train. >> and they're going to sit there for a while. >> yeah, they sat there for quite sometime and i just got an e-mail from dad saying he was finally able to check into his hotel. >> that's great. >> at least we're able to go to the hotel there. that's where i imagine there was some power. first hand account of what it's like to experience a massive earthquake in japan. all right. 23 minutes after the hour. the entire pacific fleet is on high alert this morning. and they're already getting
jarrett there. >> apparently, there in chile, they are expecting it to arrive, if a tsunami wave does arrive, around 5:00 p.m. in santiago. >> yes we hopped on the air a couple of hours ago, 20 countries will be affected. so they're all waking up their citizens saying look out, we're not kidding. it's amazing to see that cop car riding down the street in hawaii saying, there's a tsunami warning. wake up. in the middle of the night, and run much this is not a drill. >> no. as these reports keep coming in now as you reported earlier, a ship carrying 100 people apparently swept away by this tsunami in japan outside of tokyo. when it smashed into japan, of course, on friday after the earthquake. these are twitter pics coming into us of the devastation in japan. trying to make out what that is. that's in the moment of time during probably the massive earthquake that happened although it could have been one of the aftershocks because there have been like major earthquakes
people it's very difficult to get a phone line to connect to anybody within tokyo or within japan. we're all trying to call our families with mixed luck. i've been able to get through finally but it took quite a few tries but government, the prime minister held an emergency press conference very soon at earthquake. he seemed quite prepared in that sense and now he's considering trying to figure out what local officials need aid and military assistance. >> uh-huh. this is the biggest earthquake in the history of japan. and i know you've seen the images. there's never been a tsunami wave in recorded history like this. when you see these pictures of that 30 foot wave go over the north shore of your country, what do you think? >> yeah, it's really, really frightening. i mean, i've been in japan for over 30 years. but this is the first time that
area are wooden and that explains what a lot of that debris is. it took down cars and boats and buildings and the death toll currently is 35 but that number is going to go way, way up. >> thank you so much. and we'll check in with you again. thanks so much for the insight. we also have a statement released from the white house which we'd like to share with you because this is from the president of the united states through the spokesperson. michelle and i send our deepest condolences to the people of japan, particularly those who have lost loved ones in the earthquake and tsunami. the united states stands ready to help the japanese people in time of this great trial. the friendship and alliance between our two nations is unshakeable and only strengthens our resolve to stand with the people of japan as they overcome this strategy. we will continue to closely monitor the tsunamis around gentlem japan and the pacific going farther. we're asking all our citizens to listen to their state and local officials as i've instructed fema to be ready to help hawaii and all the u.s. territories
since this hit us and i happened to be home at 3:00 in the afternoon, it's a friday here so i came home early and i haven't been out of the house now so the whole thing is when this happens, they teach you and train you not to go outdoors. stay where you are. or if you're in an open space, go outdoors. i'm in a neighborhood now and i contemplated that, went outside but there's all kinds of wires and telephone poles and it's just -- >> aftershocks. >> it's really tough to make decisions when it happens. >> tom byer, amazing to get your firsthand perspective in japan live for us this morning. continue to check in with you. thank you very much for your perspective. 4.5 magnitude earthquake already struck hawaii now as a result and residents bracing for a tsunami after the major earthquake in japan. a tsunami warning has been issued for much of the u.s. west coast. the first wave is expected to hit there at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. that time has shifted. anita vogel is live for us in los angeles with the latest on that. originally they were saying that the first tsunami wave if it's
down. so can you imagine being in the middle of an earthquake with 30 aftershocks and with all lights out. >> and the thing about the power plants, we've got a news alert that a nuclear power plant is in trouble right now. there's been an escape of emergency declared. there's a cooling system failure. there's no electricity to cool the core. no radiation leaks at this point. but nonetheless, japan is a nation that gets a lot of its electricity from atomic power and if they can't cool down the core, that's going to be a problem. >> and brian just mentioned a few moments ago, the president has put out a statement just issuing a statement within the last few minutes and our own peter doocy is live in washington with all of those details. good morning. >> good morning, gretchen, and we're hearing now that the president was told about the earthquake and then the resulting tsunami by his chief of staff, bill daley at about 4:00 this morning and in the last few minutes, you just heard some of it. the white house through a spokesman did put out a statement and it reads in part
maybe in this case it wasn't quick enough. we also are getting some reports from some of our military men and women serving overseas, for example, from a lieutenant colonel who wrote us and says we're stationed here in okinawa and we are ok and they are watching. we know the uss abraham lincoln pulled into port yesterday. we're interested to hear what they've been asked to do and what they say. >> joining us on the phone from the u.s. geological survey with the very latest we have with us rob williams in golden, colorado. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> try to put this into perspective. we understand this is the largest earthquake in japan since records started in the 1800's, how big is 8.9? >> it's a great earthquake. definitely probably going to reach into the top six since about 1900 for earthquakes
known to be able to make a confident prediction. >> and so far, according to your estimation, how many aftershocks have they had in that region? >> there's been hundreds of aftershocks, i know, we were only able to analyze the larger ones. we have 40 mac any greater than five so far. those are all felt easily by people along the coast. >> this is a bad one, isn't it? >> it's a horrific event for the japanese people. >> at least the japanese engineers and construction experts, they planned for this day so as much as you could build a structure that could withstand an earthquake, they have. maybe people will take a deep breath as to it might not be bad as what happened in taiwan or might not be as bad as what happened in haiti. >> that's an excellent point. they are leading the world