Yes, but i think the quake took place in an area near the capital, so that's pretty far away down south.

The only way I'm affected by a tsunami is the fact that half my TV screen is filled with a map of Japan showing flashing areas around the coast line indicating where the tsunami *might* hit. Every few minutes even more of the TV screen is eaten up with the latest predictions of time the tsunami may hit, towns that may be affected and the number of people living in Tokyo who have decided to evacuate (despite the fact that a tsunami of 3 meters is not going to reach Tokyo)!
I really don't understand why every single TV station feels the need to have to display the same information when everyone already knows that NHK 1 (think similar to BBC 1 in the UK) basically devotes all their air time to tsunami public announcements, in as many languages as they can think of.
If only Japanese TV stations would be this diligent in their dissemination of information for similar matters, such as the quake that started this. That only got a few minutes of air time in comparison. And then the primary concern was (as always) on how many Japanese were affected.
Still at least we don't have the fire brigade out today warning every one in town about the impending doom of a tsunami that will never be able to reach us!

Ahh regional bias, gotta love it
"A nuclear disaster happened today when a stockpile of cold war munitions accidently detonated in Moscow, the centre of the city was vapourised killing approximately 100000 people and further 100000 are expected to die from radiation sickness. The shockwave from the blast was felt as far away as Helsinki WHERE AN AUSTRALIAN TOURIST WAS JOLTED AND STUBBED HIS TOE!!!!!!!!"

Yup, pretty much that, but the Japanese version would go:
"A nuclear disaster happened today in Moscow. 1 Japanese was horribly vaporized as a result..." The remaining 40 minutes of that news item would be on the life of the dead Japanese, opinions on that persons' life and character from the breasts* of their neighbors. With perhaps 30 seconds to briefly mention the others (non-Japanese) who died.
* When interviewing "normal" people over here, camera crews don't bother showing faces, you just get a screen full of breasts. They claim it's due to privacy laws. But I think there's another reason entirely...

Hmm, if privacy was an issue you'd think they could employ that mosaic overlay technology they use to ruin perfectly good porn

oops

Was BC affected? Cause, yeah, I used to live there.

Are you kidding? That's like expensive and shit. And they wouldn't have an excuse to film the breasts of some well-endowed female.

Eh, well, I think that they overuse the mosaic/blur system in Japan, like for example there's a video of a guy walking in a street and EVERYTHING except that guy is blurred out...

They film guys now? Thought it was just young teen girls.

Yes, it's logarithmic, and 8.8 is massive. But contrary to popular belief, the Richter scale isn't limited to 10. Although the strongest earthquake in recorded history was the 1960 Chile quake at ~9.5, it is estimated that the Yucatán peninsula impact (asteroid collision with earth roughly 65 million years ago) would have registered 13 on the Richter scale.
Wikipedia notes: "The impact would have caused some of the largest megatsunamis in Earth's history, reaching thousands of feet high. A cloud of super-heated dust, ash and steam would have spread from the crater, as the impactor burrowed underground in less than a second. Excavated material along with pieces of the impactor, ejected out of the atmosphere by the blast, would have been heated to incandescence upon re-entry, broiling the Earth's surface and possibly igniting global wildfires; meanwhile, enormous shock waves spawned global earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The emission of dust and particles could have covered the entire surface of the Earth for several years, possibly a decade, creating a harsh environment for living things to survive in. The shock production of carbon dioxide caused by the destruction of carbonate rocks would have led to a sudden greenhouse effect. Over a longer period of time, sunlight would have been blocked from reaching the surface of the earth by the dust particles in the atmosphere, cooling the surface dramatically. Photosynthesis by plants would also have been interrupted, affecting the entire food chain."
All in all that would have been a pretty bad day.
It is pretty disconcerting that two of the five strongest earthquakes on record have occurred in the past six years (today's Chile quake at 8.8 and the 2004 Indian Ocean quake at 9.2 or so). Is it a statistical fluke or has the earth entered a more seismically active phase for some reason?

Moral of the story: Cause and Effect.
But thats ok, the quakes and tsunamis are only happening in unimportant places, for now, so go back to buying big macs, driving pickup trucks to the grocery store, and drilling the planet for oil.
Maybe if we are lucky, North America will be the last place affected, so we can all watch the world shed itself of us.

Heh the good old "It'll never happen to me" strategy

At the same time a swarm of killer bees makes its way to Washington DC

Yep, I realised after I posted that it didn't make any sense to cap the scale like that. Decided not to edit since I was too lazy to look it up and because I was hoping to have someone correct me.
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