Of Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and to eRegister with Ministry of Foreign Affairs

When Japan was hit with an earthquake of a 7.2 magnitude on Wednesday (09 March 2011), I was worried but I managed to contact my friend who was in Hiroshima, who told me that the earthquake was not very obvious, almost to the point that nothing much can be felt.


Although earthquakes occur in Japan rather frequently, but this quake lasted longer than usual... And due to this earthquake, the authorities issued a warning of an upcoming Tsunami. But till 10 March, there was no sign of the tsunami (not that I was looking forward to it), and I felt so relieved.


But then, on Friday afternoon (11 March), something bad happened... A 8.9 magnitude earthquake rocked the northeastern part of Japan which triggered a devastating tsunami that sent 10-metres high waves towards the land. It was quite scary to see a news video footage online, where muddy waves carried cars and even BOATS with it, and moving towards the land in Sendai, wreaking houses and engulfing rice fields in the process.


The earthquake is considered the world's 5th largest one since 1900 and the biggest earthquake in Japan for the past 140 years! Trains, buses and flights are issued to stop operations, but a train carrying passengers was reported missing... :( Due to this Japan quake, it has shifted the Earth's axis of rotation by 10cm. Well, the change is not noticeable, but it is permanent - A day is getting shorter, and not as if there are enough hours in a day currently for us to do whatever we need to. A worrying issue indeed...


See this video of how the surging torrent of waves smashed the houses...



And at 00:27 of this video, a house was dragged into sea! Gosh!!!



Check out the video at BBC site (Click HERE),
very informative especially with the explanation done.



And with such a devastating natural disaster event that had just occured, let's all #prayforjapan. Hope that most of them will be fine and have their lives be back to normal as soon as possible. And of which, I feel it is a suitable time for me to mention something important that will be good for all to know... (Read on)


I always stress the importance of doing an eRegistration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) before one travels out of Singapore. It is a voluntary and free service where you eRegister your travel details on the webpage, just in case of any crisis in the country you are traveling to. They will know where you are staying in which country and city, which will come in useful should the country you are heading to experience a natural disaster event, civil unrest, etc... I always eRegister before I go for all my travel trips (except one-day trips to JB though). Oh, and I will also have the contact details of the Singapore embassies in the countries I visit to on hand.


Call me paranoid, but it only takes a few minutes to note down the embassies contact details, as well as to register yourself and your travel mates, so why not? I ever mentioned about this eRegister service in an entry in my (previous) blog, and have even created a link which was easier to remember, that direct one straight to the webpage to eRegister...

Allow me to share it with you: http://bit.ly/MFAregister.

With a link so easy to remember, you can even eRegister at the airport lounge via your phone, or by using the computer terminals available at the airport lounges (except budget terminals, duh~). See ya! :)


3 Response to Of Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and to eRegister with Ministry of Foreign Affairs

sean
12 March 2011 at 15:30

hope Japan recovers from this.dreadful disaster. nice post anyway.

14 March 2011 at 14:30

At 0.34s from the 2nd video my heart almost dropped out. The uncle is still slowly pulling his bicycle and the car is still slowly reversing.

14 March 2011 at 23:21

@Sean Thank you! :)

@Mint Yeah... But I think the uncle was more calm than the car driver. I can sense that the driver was more kancheong... or maybe thats just my opinion after watching that scene. :)

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