I will twitter some news when I can (you can see it in the sidebar of this blog or @newzjapan on twitter).
UPDATE: TV Japan being broadcast for free in the US for the next few days (not sure about other countries) but live NHK broadcast can be seen on tv through participating cable tv providers… (it’s TV Japan offering the service for free though, so Comcast, RCN, and all others should be participating.)
Everyone knows about the earthquake and I’m sure each country is doing well to cover it with a spin on its own country.
One thing you can do to get news fresh is to go to UStream. TBStv and NHK are the two main news outlets streaming.
If you set your language to Japanese on UStream TV, you can get live broadcasts of the Japanese news being done for the benefit of people living outside of Japan.
You can also watch Japanese tv from outside of Japan with Keyhole TV, which I’ve written about before also allows you to see the news as it’s being broadcast in Japan.
These are the two resources we are using to see what’s going on. Hope it helps people stay in touch.
For TWITTER users, here a lot of Japanese twitter users are using the following terms for hashmarks or without hashmarks:
jishin
jisin
earthquake
地震
津波
hinan
避難
and of course terms for the area involved such as
新潟 (Niigata)
長野 (Nagano)
群馬 (Gunma)
仙台 (Sendai)
if anyone without access to Japanese input wants some Japanese terms to cut and paste, please feel free to comment and ask.
The BBC is also doing live TV coverage through their website and quite a few of my American friends are tuning into that as it’s offering excellent coverage.
Didn’t hear that about 700 missing. You doing ok Jay?
Dave, I’m out of the country now and my people are in Kansai so all is well with us except that lingering fear that it’s not over (aftershocks don’t help much).
Does it look like Okinawa is going to have any Tsunami troubles?
Nah, nothing down here at all, luckily. Once again we got away unscathed.
Jay, there have been names mentioned on TV in the past few hours, along with ages. But you know although my Japanese is passable it’s not too hot. Can you find anywhere these names are printed in Japanese? Got a buddy in Canada trying to find any info about their family in Sendai.
Right now it seems like everything’s still in a panic so they don’t have a list of people. I think the one’s being read on the news are confirmed and seem to be mostly older people reported about by their families.
There’s a site where you can put in their names, but the site only works if they or someone else gave their status. It’s being used in Japan for this earthquake.
Here is the link to that one:
http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com/
There is also a place you can call if you know someone’s phone number and leave a message for them. Then they can call the number and get the message when everything is restored. It can only be used within Japan. It’s a service offered by NTT.
What you do for that one is call 171 then 1 then the phone number and leave a message. If you want to listen to messages left for you, you can call 171 then 2 then your phone number.
This is commonly used but requires the person to call 171 to get the message.
JAPAN HAS NO TSUNAMI DEFENCE
Because of Japan’s Earthquake Building Standards being so high. I am amazed they did so little to defend against Tsunami damage.
So here are a few suggestions…
1. Any time a tsunami warning sounds “all ships & boats must go out to sea or tie up on the west coast of Japan” (no ships or boats tie up on the East coast of Japan) due to Japan’s location on the Ring of Fire!!
2. The same can be said for cars & vans “Transport on the east coast should only be by Motorcycle or bicycle” (I never saw any floating motorcycle damage) delivery’s could occur at a set time every day say midday till 2pm, this would be a green policy as well.
May be a vote winner at the same time as saving Lives.
3. Government must sort this stuff out.
My sympathy goes out to the family’s & villagers that suffered loss
Bryan or o0zey@yahoo.com
Bryan, I wish I had more knowledge about this. I know that when the Great Hanshin Earthquake hit in Kobe, one of the problems was that the area was considered relatively stable so building codes were relaxed.
I can only imagine how much worse things would have been if not for some of the reforms after that earthquake.
Not that they could be much worse…