Quake and Tsunami hit northern Japan

[Damage]

Yeah the tsunami footage as it was taking out those greenhouses, then roads, heading straight for the town with all the cars and trucks driving around in the background, about a minute away from complete carnage. So hard core. Never seen anything like it. Poor bastards.

Creeping Death alright. (a fave Metallica song)

['llo-and Behold]

Any who survived the tsunami would've frozen last night. We have power and gas at last but still no water... and I'm in relative safety.

[alakaboo]

where are you?

['llo-and Behold]

Ibaraki. Send water, cash, beer, ASAP!

['llo-and Behold]

Oh, and body bags...

[oldman]

Anyone else find it slightly sick-making that websites run ads for the nrl or a Walt Disney Magical Tour before showing video footage of a tsunami.

Surely they could just go straight to the video, it just looks like they are making money out of death and destruction.

I just hate 'em.

[alakaboo]

^^^
got me so riled up I started writing letters.

I've turned into my grandfather.

['llo-and Behold]

To bail or not to bail...

[alakaboo]

depends on your circumstances, but it will be a while before things are back to normal.

Well, as normal as they can be for a gaikokujin.

[oldman]

^^^
got me so riled up I started writing letters.

I've turned into my grandfather.

Ever watch those British shows "Grumpy old men".

We are them!

Sent off an email to smh absolutely lambasting them for it.

But the USA sites were the worst, a full ad about Walt Disney magical tours before showing footage. Talk about out of place.

['llo-and Behold]

I've heard 10k's. Thaat's right, 10.

[Nick Carroll]

Hi gang, rare return moment.

I am trying to find out a bit about the local surf community's experiences of this fcuken terrible disaster. The tsunami struck an active surfing coastline.

'llo-and-behold sounds like he's not far out of the zone; is there anyone else with any information?

thanks.

[Skipper]

Understand your concern Nick. And I add this before I post a response to a fair point raised by Olds about the nature and role of the media in all this. And I stress that I have the utmost regard for all those affected but this is a crucial side issue to the frightful facts as they unfold.

Anyone else find it slightly sick-making that websites run ads for the nrl or a Walt Disney Magical Tour before showing video footage of a tsunami.

Surely they could just go straight to the video, it just looks like they are making money out of death and destruction.

I just hate 'em.

For various reasons I've avoided watching or reading about this recent catastrophe  Save for a brief glimpse of the tv on Saturday morning showing the wave surge over a part of Japan's coastline.  
Perhaps a case of disaster fatigue and/or a  resistance to emotional investment.  But not an indifference to the human suffering ive understood to have occured.
The radio has provided most of the information for me and even then,  a sense of despair becomes overwhelming, at not only the facts that are reported but the hyperbolic cliches they too use which contribute to a feeling of shame at the nature of sensationalist journalism infecting the ABC even. That kind of 'overstated tragedy' speak.... 

The media in general, since the floods inparticularly, have become a desensitized zone of platitudes and despair overload. Seemingly revelling in the spectacle of the tragic. One result of this being their senseless urge to switch over to some light and fluffy puff piece to somehow balance the heavy sh*t they've just exposed us to. It's nothing new or a particularly revealing observation, but it creates a kind of hyper-real dis connection, simulaneously trading on the emotional investment of the viewer and the tragic capital of the victims. Mixing the facts with subjective, repetitive editorialising in the form of powerful images cut to soppy music is one of the more heinous examples of this.  

Maybe this is just the beginning. 
Fancifully unrelated and quite possibly inconsequential, there's a full moon that will be closer to the earth than ever before next week. 
To quote ol Bob- " it's not dark yet, but it's getting there"

And to evoke/misquote a couple of French existentialist wags- "The geology of morals?  Who does the earth think it is?
Indeed. We are all just microorganisms in the scheme of things.        

[chrisb]

I wonder how former RS correspondent "Stuey" who went to Shiba is coping

[oldman]

For various reasons I've avoided watching or reading about this recent catastrophe.

I was at home on Friday arvo. The news came through and I was thinking, oh-oh, that's probably gonna produce a tsunami. I wonder how much time they have?

Well that was answered fairly quickly. Within 10 or 15 minutes apparently depending on where you were. I was watching what I think was live footage as it came in.

Perhaps a case of disaster fatigue and/or a  resistance to emotional investment.

The media in general, since the floods inparticularly, have become a desensitized zone of platitudes and despair overload. Seemingly revelling in the spectacle of the tragic.

The line between reporting and then leeching off the tragedy is rather thin I expect, so I'm happy to cut them a lot of slack, but usually they go way past that line, then the next, and trample over any lines as far as the eye can see.

.........simulaneously trading on the emotional investment of the viewer and the tragic capital of the victims.

To quote ol Bob- " it's not dark yet, but it's getting there."

Fixed. One of Bob's better ones

[oldman]

Was pulling on the boots this morning, and Karl Steppingoverit was at "Ground Zero" in Japan.

That, right there.

I can live with the ABC crossing to correspondents who have long been stationed in the area to cover regional news, but Karl Stephanovic jetting over from morning 'breakfast' TV.

That!!!!!!!!! Not necessary, adds nothing, requires local resources that could almost certainly be used to better effect, and clearly moves into voyeurism.

[carvin marvin]

What I find incredibly offensive is people in helicopters filming the tsunami and not using it to rescue people at that moment.
In some of the footage there is a person running through a feild with the tsunami about 400 metres behind him and the helicopter films him then pans back to the tsunami.
The person obviously drowned, but why was the helicopters priority filming and not rescue.

The same thing happened in the Brisbane floods when a helicopter filmed a father, wife and son sitting on a car with the water up to the roof, even if the chopper was not equiped with a winch it could at least be equiped with a long rope which could have dragged the 3 people through the water to a safer spot. As it turned out all 3 were washed off the car roof and the 3 became separated and only the wife and son survived.

[Skipper]

.........

To quote ol Bob- " it's not dark yet, but it's getting there."

Fixed. One of Bob's better ones

didn't sit right so fixed on my part too.

..... Good points all round on this issue Olds. As always.
Hope you get that letter published.