Japan is one of the most prepared places in the world for disasters that could strike, be it earthquake, tsunami, or volcano. While any loss of life is tragic in situations like these, it could have been far worse had the 5th largest recorded earthquake occurred elsewhere.

It is definitely impressive to see the safety measures working for the most part. Their early warning system gave many people an alert that they needed to take cover. In Tokyo, this warning was close to a minute before the damaging S waves arrived. This system is integrated into quite a few different places, including all the mass transit trains. While the tsunami did cause the loss of a train, not a single train was derailed due to the actual earthquake. Between the warning system, and great public education, countless lives were saved. The government there has a video showing the system, and what to do when it is activated. Eerily, the same site has a video posted about tsunamis a day before the earthquake.

I was still up the night the event occurred, and watched a lot of the initial footage coming out of the country. Many of the early videos showed newsrooms preparing for the earthquake before it struck their area, with people getting face masks on and hiding under desks. Initially, it was reported as a 7.9, and as time went on, it inched up to 8.4, then eventually 8.9. What was truly heartbreaking was watching the tsunami waves wash over so many different areas of the northern countryside.

I'm not sure if we have any active users from Japan these days, but in any case I hope they were out of harms way.