Page 23 - Simon Boxall News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

preside over crowds today in havana. he's on his last leg of his visit to cuba. before saying mass, he'll speak to cuban president raul castro. his brother fidel has requested a meeting as well. a key part of the health care reform law may be in jeopardy. the u.s. supreme court expressed different views on whether the government can require individuals to buy health insurance or face a penalty. today is the third and final day of the hearings. a ruling is expected in june. those are the top stories from cnn. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. good morning...

South coast of america. however, given the winds, it is sensible to put the outlying areas on alert because there is a chance that it could still cause damage around these parts. >> simon, the wave that hit japan was a monster, like ten meters. give us a sense for those not familiar with tsunamis how this can form, how it can happen, a wall of water can hit a city and keep moving. i mean this is the thing. it does not stop. >> it doesn't stop. what happens initially is you get an earth tremor. e it creates huge waves.

Hello? >> simon, my apologies there. i had my producer speaking to me. so japan has also been issued other tsunami warnings. i mean how long will this last? ivan cabrera, our meteorologist, said sort of a the two-hour time frame. what can you tell us about that? >> for japan you're looking at standby. for the pacific as a whole, it will take 12 hours. the way the wave in the ocean was created was about 500 miles an hour. so after 12 hours, really the danger has passed by immediately around japan for the next two hours is going to be critical. >> all right. simon boxall from the national oceano...

If you look at the area that was konked, it was a low-lying area in japan. the devastation is difficult to say. >> it's actually frightening to hear that those people would not have received a warning. we saw obviously the cars driving away from the massive wave, that wall of water. as you say, 15, 20 minutes, that's not a lot of time to seek higher ground. simon, we have said that some 50 countries have been issued tsunami alerts. i mean give us a sense of how far reaching this tsunami will be. >> it will be felt all over the city, but the question is how big will it be when it hits hawaii, w...

Going to want to get out of there. >> very quickly, what's the timeline of bringing this situation at the nuclear power plant under control? >> i wouldn't expect them to do it any time soon. these things are very hard to change. you've got to move that heat around. the key is getting the heat out of reactor and that's hard to do. once the steam is routed where they want it to go, maybe hours, maybe by tomorrow. that should probably alleviate the situation if they maintain the power inside the reactor. >> okay. we're just getting news here into cnn as we've been talking about the breadth and wh...