What an 8.9 Japan Quake Feels Like Today
BY Nancy Scola | Friday, March 11 2011
Earthquake footage from inside a Tokyo apartment, via Mashable.
CNET's Tim Hornyak has a report on what it looks and feels like to live through one of the most powerful earthquakes in the recorded history of the world when the context is wired, modern Japan:
"The streets were so full of people walking, and it was so crowded it was like being in a morning rush-hour commuter train," said Toshie Niida, who works at a cable broadcaster in central Tokyo, in a Facebook chat. "It took me more than an hour to walk home."
"I saw a lot of people on the street talking on cell phones, but also long lines for every remaining pay phone," said Brian Chapman, a journalist living in Tokyo. "Facebook and Skype are proving to be the best ways to keep in touch. An on-the-scene reporter said a lot of people near the most damaged areas are getting a lot of their TV info from watching TV on their cell phones, because regular TVs aren't working."
(Of course, one factor worth mentioning that Japan's technological development includes investing in earthquake-resistant architecture and public infrastructure.)
In a similar vein, the L.A. Times Mark Magnier reports from New Delhi on the response on Twitter to the quake -- "Mixed in with the raw emotion were the community-service bulletins of the sort that small-town radio stations once provided during tornadoes or floods," while Slate's Michael Agger notes the response from global entities like Google; in addition to adding a informational link on Google's minimalist homepage, "The search engine's Person Finder is also currently live for Japan — you can tell friends and family that you are okay and those searching for someone can post a query." And the Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal has a rundown on "where to find information and resources about the 10th-largest quake since 1900."
The full picture to emerge of how social media played into this situation will take some time to emerge, but Japan's massive quake is already sparking innovation, or at least suggested innovation. Does it make sense for there to be a way to tell on Twitter when someone's actually witnessing first-hand a newsworthy situation, as opposed to commenting or retweeting from afar? Jeff Jarvis floats the idea of getting the Twitter world to adopt the convention of "!jpquake for witnesses vs. #jpquake for discussion." One potential adopter: the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. Earlier today, @USEmbassyTokyo retweeted this tweet from a Tokyo resident: "After #quake in #tokyo, phone lines down, Twitter up. An important medium to get information out during disasters."
Here in the U.S., Japan's quake prompts techPresident intern Anna Lekas Miller to bring to our attention Did You Feel It? The U.S. Geological Survey says the site is "intended to tap the abundant information available about earthquakes from the people who actually experience them." Miller, a Bay Area native, reports that Californians regularly use it to find out if they're imagining the shaking or if the earth really moved.
(With Anna Lekas Miller)