12 March 2011: Much has occured in a little over the past 24 hours, and much remains yet to occur. The full extent of what occured within the earth's crust east of Japan remains unknown. That being the fact-of-the matter, I thought it might be a good idea to provide you dear readers with the most informative information available, at least that which I have seen thus far, and which is not exactly that which the mainstream media is reporting thus far.
Firstly, my own opinion on these issues derives from, as discussed in the previous article, the Lord's
Olivet Discourse. Such major events of increasing magnitude and frequency are the result of the Lord's created physical laws coming into conflict with other of his created physical laws which have been knocked totally out of kilter due to the sins of mankind. Mankind is reaping what our distant ancestors sowed and continue to sow.
But it's not always judgment from God, but rather a physical manifestation of sin.
Jesus knew such events would occur in this season and that's why he prophetically warned about them in the Olivet Discourse. These are but birth pangs of His Glorious Kingdom to come.
Maranatha!
That said, here is the information I've received this far.
The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have
moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and
shifted the Earth on its axis. "At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).
The temblor, which struck Friday afternoon near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys.
Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's east coast. The quake was the most powerful to hit the island nation in recorded history and the tsunami it unleashed traveled across the Pacific Ocean, triggering tsunami warnings and alerts for 50 countries and territories as far away as the western coasts of Canada, the U.S. and Chile. The quake triggered more than 160 aftershocks in the first 24 hours -- 141 measuring 5.0-magnitude or more.
The quake occurred as
the Earth's crust ruptured along an area about 250 miles (400 kilometers) long by 100 miles (160 kilometers) wide, as tectonic plates slipped more than 18 meters, said Shengzao Chen, a USGS geophysicist. Japan is located along the Pacific "ring of fire," an area of high seismic and volcanic activity stretching from New Zealand in the South Pacific up through Japan, across to Alaska and down the west coasts of North and South America. The quake was "hundreds of times larger" than the 2010 quake that ravaged Haiti, said Jim Gaherty of the LaMont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. The Japanese quake was of similar strength to the 2004 earthquake in Indonesia that triggered a tsunami that killed over 200,000 people in more than a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean. "The tsunami that it sent out was roughly comparable in terms of size," Gaherty said. "[The 2004 tsunami] happened to hit some regions that were not very prepared for tsunamis
... we didn't really have a very sophisticated tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean basin at the time so the damage was significantly worse."
The Japanese quake comes just weeks after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch on February 22, toppling historic buildings and killing more than 150 people. The timeframe of the two quakes have raised questions whether the two incidents are related, but experts say the distance between the two incidents makes that unlikely. "I would think the connection is very slim," said Prof. Stephan Grilli, ocean engineering professor at the University of Rhode Island.
SOURCE: RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service (EDIS)
Hungary, Budapest
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant located in Okuma, Japan was critically damaged in yesterday's tectonic collapse. An explosion, most likely due to the extreme pressures building inside the plant's infrastructure since the earthquake, resulted this morning and appears to have blown apart the protective containment structure built around the reactor.
This earthquake damage has resulted in the nuclear meltdown of at least one reactor core. Therefore, in additon to all of the massive destruction along the east coast of Japan, the nation and this region of northeast Asia now also has a major nuclear catastrophe to contend with. It reamains to be seen if this disaster is on a scale of the
1986 Chernobyl catastrophe or worse, but all who live within 12-miles of the plant have been mandatorily evacuated from their homes.
