Talk:2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami/Archive 4

Questionable edit in Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant section
An English language reference has been replaced with Japanese language reference, and crucial information has been deleted from the article: Please desist immediately! Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:43, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami&diff=419136398&oldid=419135545


 * Pleased provide actual evidence immediately! Like some that actually proves the later sources are wrong. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please the the diff above - English language source that said "Tokyo" was deleted, and was changed to "Saitama" with Japanese language reference. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Saitama seems to be a Tokyo suburb. The edit was made by a long-term contributor to Wikipedia. I suggest you (a) revert to the version written by someone who knows what they are talking about, (b) apologise, and (c) take your conspiracy theories elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:15, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The reliable source (Reuters) says Tokyo, not Saitama. The reference was deleted, and the text was changed so that it no longer corresponded to the reference. Then a non-English language reference was substituted, which can only be verified by people who can read Japanese. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Non-English_sources Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Why is Reuters a more reliable source than whatever Japanese-language source was provided? Do you have translated information from the Japanese source showing that we're using wrong information? –flodded ☃ (gripe)  02:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there something wrong with Japanese language references? This disaster happened in Japan, last I checked, so many of the most current references will be in Japanese. The editor who made the contribution you note speaks Japanese, and thus provides us with the valuable ability to have Japanese-language references and information included in this English-language article. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  02:30, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please see the policy cited above. This is English language Wikipedia, so English language references are preferred. Do you have reason to believe the English language source is incorrect? Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:36, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * "Because this is the English Wikipedia, English-language sources should be used in preference to non-English language sources of equal caliber and content, though the latter are allowed where appropriate." We're using Japanese sources when they have newer and more complete information than English sources. In those cases, the English-langage sources are NOT of equal caliber and content, so the policy certainly allows us to use non-English language sources in preference there. Edit: Note that the policy doesn't even say they need to exceed the caliber and content of English-language sources, just that they need to be of equal caliber; so we actually go beyond that with many of these Japanese sources. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  02:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ghostofnemo, please see WP:NPA. You have chosen to cast aspersions on a long term Japanese contributor, on the talk page of an article about a major disaster in Japan, in order to promote the wild accusations of censorship you promote on your user page . This is offensive, and merits an apology. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * How do you know it is better information? No translation has been provided. At best we have two conflicting sources. Reuters is a rather reliable source, so it would take something rather convincing to prove they are in error. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I haven't mentioned any editors by name here. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:47, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * What exactly is the 'conflict'? The two versions say much the same thing, except that the Japanese one is more specific. There is no evidence at all of "news management", except in your imagination. Apologise, or troll elsewhere. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:52, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not even sure what the Japanese source says. If you speak Japanese, perhaps you could provide a translation here, as the policy suggests. But why delete the English language source and delete the word "Tokyo"? If there is no conflict, we should use the source that Wikipedia policy says is preferable, which is the English language source. Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:59, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No personal attacks, but it's ok to call me a troll? Ghostofnemo (talk) 03:03, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please do not edit your talk page comments after others have commented on them : "Substantially altering a comment after it has been replied to may deny the reply of its original context. It can also be confusing." (WP:REDACT). If you don't know what the Japanese source says, why did you suggest it was evidence of "news management"? Actually, don't bother to answer, this is a waste of time. And yes, you are a troll. Your only reason to start this section was to push your conspiracy claptrap. This is trolling - of the worst kind in a context like this... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to use Google Translate or another method to point out blatantly mistranslated information. We ASSUME it to be better information by assuming good faith on the part of a long-time Wikipedia editor who has been contributing Japanese links and verifying the validity of them. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption to make. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  03:08, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * But it's against Wikipedia policy to replace apparently good English sources with foreign language sources. How does the Japanese source differ from the Reuters report? Does the word "Tokyo" really need to be deleted? Ghostofnemo (talk) 03:14, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it's against Wikipedia policy to replace apparently good English sources with lesser quality foreign language sources. You have not shown this to be the case, other than stating or avoiding the issue of not being able to translate the source. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  03:21, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Concerning my redactions, YOU complained I was being accusatory, so I toned them down. They took away the "strike out" characters, so I don't know how else to retract the comments. Ghostofnemo (talk) 03:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no reason to change the section title, unless you want re-elevate the drama level. Ghostofnemo (talk) 03:22, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * A case has to be made that the Reuters information is in error or out of date. No one has made that case. Where is your translation? The policy says to post it here. I think "in Saitama" and "around Tokyo" are the same. Ghostofnemo (talk) 03:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * DNFTT AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Is there agreement that when Reuters states around Tokyo, they are refering to the readings in Saitama? If that is so I think we should use the most specific source. However we should specify near Tokyo or similar, because most non-japanese readers will not necesarrily know where Saitama is. However is it Saitama city or Saitama prefecture that the japanse source refers to? Taemyr (talk) 04:56, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I found two en ref. supporting my edit, and I am restoring it. See and . I think there will be no problem about this matter. Sorry that I took long to find en citation. Oda Mari (talk) 06:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Your Japan Times reference says the radiation level reached 20 times the normal level in Tokyo. I've added that to your edit, because I think it's notable. Ghostofnemo (talk) 16:18, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * But you didn't have to remove the detail at this edit. You must remember your first edit was totally wrong and I just corrected it. Oda Mari (talk) 17:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There was no reason to remove the word "Tokyo". English sources and the Japanese source all mentioned the radiation level in Tokyo. Ghostofnemo (talk) 09:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Criticism of Japanese Government Catastrophe Response
I'm not sure how the article should present this, but I read many many web pages of shelters which have no food. I also read many web pages of rescue teams from UK, USA, etc, but few information about Japanese teams and efforts.

Tokyo is the largest most modern city in the world, and only a couple of hundred km away, people should have better resources in shelters???????????? There should be no one without food with Tokyo so close. Something is amiss with catastrophe management, but I cannot find best article to represent. The situation reminds me of the horrible USA government management when hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans. I think lack of Government Japanese response should have a section, something like this: Hurricane Katrina--Tallard (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, it seems to me too that the first ten hours of Fukushima got lost :( --Chris.urs-o (talk) 17:33, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It reported to be the "most powerful known earthquake to hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world overall since modern record-keeping began in 1900". Dozens(?) of towns very badly damaged or simply "swept away", hundreds of kilometres of coastline flooded. Add the nuclear plant problems & "336,521 people .....displaced from their homes". Perhaps it is simply too big an event to be dealt with easily, even by (likely) the nation best prepared for such an event? - 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 18:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Priority was and is Fukushima. They could have done better. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 20:02, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I am not seeing reasonable critical analysis in reliable sources at this time and I don't think we should have a section on it. Critical commentary seems to be based on an ignorance of what a government can reasonably be expected to do in this time scale. I am not surprised that Tallard has read few reports of Japanese rescue teams - did he/she check Japanese language sources? Obviously Western media will report on Western rescue teams.-- Pontificalibus (talk) 18:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * In the first 36 hours after the quake, a majority of what I was seeing was Japanese, translated. I don't speak any Japanese, but I liked seeing the Japanese media translated, I'm seeing very little of that in the media anymore, no matter how hard I try. I can agree with Chris, nuclear had to be a priority. But on the topic of life in shelters, when the largest city in the world sits 200km away, it should be incredibly easy to bring better supplies than what is happening, people in shelters are hungry and cold, according to dozens of articles. Also, with 30 million people 200km away, I would have expected vast numbers of Japanese rescuers, not only military and police. Granted, this was bigger than anyone was prepared for, or could have been planned for. But the sheer number of very close masses of humans should have made for easier/quicker handling, even without a good plan. How long do people need to go hungry and cold before we realise there's something fishy here. I don't know the historical process of how the Katrina response criticism section came about, I have no doubt is was not an easy process!--Tallard (talk) 08:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, there's this article for one, stating ""They are leaving us to die," says the mayor of Minamasoma inside the exclusion zone" and "Japanese media have became more critical of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's handling of the disaster, and have accused both the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co of failing to provide enough information on the incident." Now, I agree that speculation based on the initial arguments wouldn't be sufficient to add a section, but we do seem to have verifiable reports. Can any Japanese folks confirm whether the media and people there are acting like the BBC is reporting? –flodded ☃ (gripe)  21:39, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * And has the Japanese Wiki page began dealing with this?--Tallard (talk) 08:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

List of affected towns
Do we have a list of affected towns/districts? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Any such list would be massive, and not appropriate for this main article due to that. We do point out the affected regions, and the more notable cities. I do think that we could perhaps do a better job of pointing out the hardest hit regions, though. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  20:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't expect it to be in this article. I think a list of towns, with columns for earthquake, tsunami, deaths, would be useful. For instance, a CNN reporter just said that Sendai did not get tsunami - but looking at the map I am not sure about that. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 21:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The most detailed information along those lines that I'm aware of that's readily available would be the Japanese National Police Agency report, which breaks down injuries/missing people/property damage/etc by prefecture. English version; Japanese version (may be more current.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  21:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting link - first mention I have seen of damage on Hokkaido which our article doesn't have either. (It made me download Japanese fonts to display only the English version though.) Can someone explain why the districts are arranged in 5 groups in the Japanese version but one big list in the English. What detail are we missing in the translation? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 22:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Those groups appear to be geographical regions or something along those lines. You can use Google Translate to translate them. You're best off doing individual chunks of text rather than the whole thing, since it chokes somewhat on the PDF formatting. (Note that for vertical text, you may want to copy and paste individual letters so they're horizontal, making sure there are no spaces between the characters. On OS X you can option-drag to select an arbitrary rectangular region of text spanning multiple lines, not sure if Windoze provides similar functionality.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  22:28, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Reply to the IP comment above (75.41.110.200), our article does indirectly mention Hokkaido, in that the bit on tsunami maxima that I added includes Erimo, Hokkaido which is on the southernmost cape of Hokkaido (see Cape Erimo). But I was unable to find more in the Western media about the surge of several metres (3.5 m) that was recorded there. It is purely speculation on my part, but possibly there are cliffs there that protected some of that area, though any areas exposed to the sea (i.e. any area within a few metres of sea level and on the coast) would have seen a damaging surge from the tsunami. However, I don't know where the JMA recording station in that location is in relation to the city of Erimo. Carcharoth (talk) 05:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

@ (75.41.110.200). I agree we need some sort of list of places affected, in a separate article. The nuclear reactor section now offers a link to a list of nuclear related articles, the same approach can be used for a locality listing. Numbers are jumping all over the place between local data and national data. Separating them would be advantageous. As time passes, different localities will achieve different rates of response and the article should reflect that.--Tallard (talk) 08:29, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

What is and what is not de facto vandalism: if you think material should be moved down, move it don't delete it
Someone put content UNDER the sourced Asian Disaster Center sentence. I have no problem putting it elsewhere but as per the ! comment it would be nice to move it somewhere in mainspace rather than deleting it. Where else does this article point to definitive satellite and numerical data which is updated constantly? It seems that to simply delete that material without re-placing it elsewhere amounts to a vandalization. OK, let's just say, "data destruction"- an all too common wikipedia activity often done for wikilawyer reasons by people with little if any interest in or expertise in the underlying topic. Nor compassion for the people who need up to date information. Since there is no indication of WHERE the deletor thinks the material belongs, I will try placing it elsewhere but I can't stay at this article and mount a 24 hour anti-deletion/anti-vandalism watch.

The material in question: The Asian Disaster Reduction Center has assigned the a globally unique identifier (GLIDE) number EQ-2011-000028-JPN,for the Asian Disaster Reduction Center satellite and database.

If you don't like where I put it just put it in a more appropriate spot thank you in advance.

Geofferybard (talk) 00:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * If you had perhaps paid more attention to editing the article, and less to making accusations of vandalism, you might well have discovered that this has already been added to the 'Earthquake' section. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, if it was way down and it was down like five paragraphs plus a user box template, you might have simply wrote "Moving" in the comment line and there would have been no issue. I thought you deleted it and as stated in the !comment all I asked was that there not be destruction of data. I think there are places in the record where I stated that something "appeared" to be vandalism, or requested non-vandalism, which is not "accusation". Just please make it clear in the comment section what you are doing and a lot of time could be saved.

If you really want to do a mitzvah and are quite up on wikipedistics, maybe you could think up a way to make the link more readily available for a click through, as it is a pretty good resource. Well, never mind. Geofferybard (talk) 00:43, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * As one of the goyim, I don't really go in for mitzvahs, and wikipedistics aren't really my thing. It wasn't actually me that moved the relevant section - I merely observed that you seemed to be intent on reinserting it into the lede when it was already included lower down. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia interface doesn't work very well when multiple editors are working on the same article at the same time, making WP:AGF even more essential. With hindsight, this looks more like cockup than conspiracy, and we'd probably all do well to just learn a lesson, and walk away... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Since I performed at least one of these reverts (tagged as good faith I believe and not as vandalism), I'd thought I'd clarify the reason. It wasn't primarily that the material needed to be moved, it was that the material was added in an unusable state, with broken links and not edited properly. Thus, it basically stood out on the page as a messy blob. It didn't help that it was in the lede, but that wasn't the primary reason I reverted it. Basically,my point was that it's not appropriate to be using this as a place for interim/test edits unnecessarily; for a short blurb, you can compose and test it elsewhere (e.g. in your userspace or a sandbox), and create the non-existent wikilinked article (that was initially present in the blurb) ahead of time as well. This is especially true on an article that's getting a lot of hits and a lot of edits; I think it's common sense that we should strive extra-hard for popular articles to look good to readers if it's not a hassle to do so, and in this case it wouldn't have been a hassle to add the information in a finalized format. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  03:39, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Spinoff and effects
Editors here may be interested in the following discussion:

Articles for deletion/Impact of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on the video game industry

Colonel Warden (talk) 08:34, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Nonsensical value for height of tsunami at Ōtsuchi, Iwate prefecture – 25m (82 ft)
A 25m wave would be the height of an 8 story building. It's much more likely that the person quoted mis-spoke, and meant to say 25 feet, which would be equivalent to 7.5m (the height of a two storey house) which would be much more in line with other readings in the article. It's also much more in line with the actual video footage shown in the referenced article, where the tops of buildings are visible.

In addition, a statement from a cameraman with no experience in seismology (or related disciplines) and no measuring equipment quoted on niche website (Breaking News Video Network, Inc) is not a reliable source of information, so I'd even doubt his 25ft estimate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.16.7.77 (talk) 12:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, and I removed the mention earlier from both this article and the article on the town. See also User talk:Strange Passerby where I pretty much said the same thing. The source provided is not an RS, and I agree on the point that the person is not trained in judging the wave heights, and it would be extremely unwise to include such a reading in the article without any official agency confirming it. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs • Editor review) 12:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect and inconsistent figures for "axis shift" in Intro & Geophysical Impact sections
There are two conflicting references to the axis of the earth "shifting", which would imply a translation (change in orbit), not the rotation of the earth detailed by the single good source. The quoted figures seem intended to refer to the shift of the intersection of one of the earth's axes with the earth's surface. The intro quotes 10 cm/3.9 inches, but points to a decent article which gives 6.5 inches as the surface intersection point shift (and explains that they're talking about the intersection point and defines which of the several possible axes they are referring to). The Geophysical Impact section points to a dubious article which claims that the rotation axis changed by 25 cm. This article shows no understanding that these "shift" figures refer to surface intersection point. Here's a NASA reference which backs up the 6.5 inch number and verifies which axis: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/japanquake/earth20110314.html Shadowcamel (talk) 13:13, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Otsuchi could be worst hit, 12,000 of 15,000 inhabitants presumed dead, 50 ft surge only 8 minutes after earthquake
CNN reported on the footage taken by Brian Barnes, professional storm chaser, working in collaboration with Ric O'Barry, members of Oscar winning documentary team of The Cove, who were in Otsuchi filming for documentary work. KATU News also reports eye witness account "50-foot wall of water rushing in" 8 minutes after the earthquake. President of the International Federation of Red Cross Tadateru Konoe stated: "After my long career in the Red Cross where I have seen many disasters and catastrophes, this is the worst I have ever seen. Otsuchi reminds me of Osaka and Tokyo after the Second World War when everything was destroyed and flattened, Tadateru Konoe told Reuters during a visit to the coastal town. In the town of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture, 12,000 out of a population of 15,000 have disappeared". "I don't think you will find anywhere worse on the coastline."

Otsuchi could be the worst hit town, and these accounts and tsunami footage are the best available. Since the present city listing of time/height is from the JMA site only, I'm not sure where in the article to place this information.--Tallard (talk) 13:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose inclusion, per above section, as baseless hype not backed up by any official report. I cannot stress enough that these eye-witnesses are not experts or trained and we cannot and should not take their word as fact for inclusion in the article. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs • Editor review) 13:34, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Borderline of rubble in the background along vegetation in aerial photo #5, corroborates that the surge was much higher than 2 stories high.--Tallard (talk) 13:40, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * On that, I point you to WP:No original research. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs • Editor review) 13:43, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit Request - international response section
Done

In the international response section, (currently the last sentence,) please wiki link Operation Tomodachi (Operation 'Friend'), the United States operation to support Japan in the current disaster. - 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 13:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * ! - 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 14:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

No "See also" section?
I know some page sections have "See alsos", "Main article" hatnotes and 'in-line' links, but should we collect them/some of them into a main 'See also'? - 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 13:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We had one but it was edited it out because all of the same information was already wikilinked in the article; I agree with the removal, since they were indeed duplicated links. Re-adding it makes sense if we do have unique links that are relevant but can't or don't go in the main article. Do you have any suggestions for things that we don't link to yet that should be added to a See also? –flodded ☃ (gripe)  14:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Not really. :-(. It was finding the Operation Tomodachi page that go me thinking, as I had never heard of it. If it was in a 'See also', it would be easier for readers to find related articles, without reading the whole 'main' page! Which I must admit I haven't done, though I have been doing the odd edit on it (when possible) since only a few hours after the event. Maybe better to not have as articles are being created and deleted ie the 'Video game' one.Impact of the 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami on the video game industry - 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 17:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

New info
There's an article which might offer some new info about this EQ. 
 * 1. the proportion of shaking with period of about 1 sec
 * 2. the process and duration of this EQ
 * 3. the PGA was almost 3G (to be more precise, 2933 gal with reference here )

Would like to see someone update it. Thanks. Qrfqr (talk) 14:41, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The updated PGA seems to make more sense, having done a little research before removing the non-notable 2.2g of the 2011 Christchurch quake (that quake's own page said that was only consistent with MM X+, thus it seemed reasonable to assume that Mercalli XI/XII quakes have even higher peak accelerations than that) that had been used as a comparison by ways of demonstrating how low this quake's was. I'm not an expert on quakes and don't speak Japanese; it would be helpful to have someone who's one (or both!) update this. The Google Translate output for the first reference doesn't immediately make it clear how the quake mechanism works to a non-expert like me, due to the quality of the translation. I think the 6 minute duration there is definitely worth updating with the new ref, and there's been other discussion on that, so I updated it in the infobox as well as added it to the main body. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  15:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Buildings affected in lede
I added in that over 100k buildings were affected. I'm not sure whether or not this belongs here at this point as it seems fairly certain the number will be much higher, but then again, it's just the official count like the casualty numbers I added it next to. If anyone's wondering about the source since it's not obvious, I added up the buildings destroyed/damaged from the National Police Agency PDF (per WP:CALC exception to WP:SYNTH :) and it now totals just over 100k. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  14:53, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Black Swan event
An article in the Washington Post has offered this as an example of a black swan event, also noted in Foreign Policy. There might be room for a mention of the concept in the article in the media coverage section.  Acroterion   (talk)   19:01, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

"Human beings disassembled"?
What on God's green earth is this supposed to mean, from the infobox? Fortunately, it was gone by the time I tried to edit it out. Human beings are not robots; they aren't "disassembled." Moncrief (talk) 20:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, some anon IP keeps trying to insert this - evidently they have a limited grasp of English. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:36, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * At least people are watching the page, as almost every revert I've tried has resulted in a conflict with someone else already reverting! It looks like someone requested semi-protection for this page already, too, so that should hopefully fix the problem. I suppose, technically, the earthquake DID "disassemble" human beings...very technically. :) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  21:02, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems to be a problem with English comprehension. "Total damage" refers here quite obviously to environmental, structural, and non-human damage. The specific and ever-updated number of reported deaths and injuries is just below in the same infobox. Frustrating that the anon can't quite grasp this. Moncrief (talk) 21:04, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I was assuming that the IP was foreign and that they had just used Google Translate or something, but they kept on reverting... BurtAlert (talk) 21:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The IP addresses appear to be in a US-based T-Mobile block, so it's more likely vandalism than someone who just has a poor grasp of English. (Well, perhaps the person has a poor grasp of English as well, even if it's his or her native language.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  21:15, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Careful, apparently now human beings are being brutally disassembled! How does one request an IP range block? –flodded ☃ (gripe)  21:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppose it is just possible the IP meant 'displaced' - though vandalism looks more likely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I tried to AGF, but with the sheer number of reverts along with it being a US-based block, etc, I can't see this being anything but vandalism. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  21:40, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The article has now been semi-protected. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, how does one add the appropriate lockbox icon to the page? It wasn't added when protecting, and I thought adding a protected template would accomplish that as well...but it doesn't. Someone please clue me in and/or add the proper semi-protected lockbox. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  22:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean this?  ? Moondyne (talk) 23:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be it; added, thanks. :) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  23:55, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Lovely, he hit the injured and missing template pages as well to update them to instead list the number of partially disassembled and possibly disassembled human beings. (The dead template is semi-protected, but I assume those would be "fully disassembled" if it could be edited by IP users.) Reverted, but anyone watching for vandalism might want to watch those as well since the edits were around for 15+ minutes before I noticed them included on the main page. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  00:29, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I made a request on WP:ANI to block the IP block that's been doing this. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  00:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * What the hell is going on its now in the current event shoutbox. Is this hacking? 79.103.123.250 (talk) 01:22, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I just reverted that too. No "hacking," just an idiot vandalizing pages. Noted on the WP:ANI request that that was vandalized too. Vandal seems to really want to make sure people know that humans were disassembled! –flodded ☃ (gripe)  01:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I removed the template. Is it possible to protect a template from IP and novice users? I've never heard of this kind of issue before. Thegreatdr (talk) 01:35, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I disagree, they are part of the discussion and part of the history of this conversation. They are also part of why this user was blocked, specifically being linked to from WP:ANI to demonstrate this user's poor faith edits. They are not on the article, they're on the talk page, and should absolutely not be removed. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  01:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You can disagree all you want, but they're in the talk page history. Since it's a talk page, removing offensive content is no problemo. Thegreatdr (talk) 01:53, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the removal of the offensive content from the talk page; it was linked to from WP:ANI as noted and is part of why this vandal was banned. Does anyone else concur with restoring it? I won't change things either way unless someone speaks up. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  02:07, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I can see the reasoning behind retaining it, but frankly there are more important issues, and why leave vandal-droppings about? If anyone is interested, they can look in the page history. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:11, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Admins blocked 208.54.87.0/24 for us for 55 hours. Hopefully that will solve the problem, and the vandal will get bored and give up... (One troll-like being was disassembled in this unnecessary discussion.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  01:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Not to give any validity to the weirdness of this vandal, but perhaps the "Casualities" section of the infobox might be better placed before the "Total damage" section. That order would correspond to the usual human conception of any disaster (loss of human life is more relevant and important than types of physical damage), and may prevent the kind of confusion evidenced here (assuming, which in all likelihood it is, this wasn't pure vandalism from the start). I'm not heavily invested in this idea.... it's just a thought. If the disaster infobox template is always set up a certain way (the way it is here), so be it. Moncrief (talk) 04:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * That seems sensible enough - the template does seem to be rather badly laid out. I'd change the 'total damage' section to read 'physical damage' too. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, some of that stuff could use shuffling. "Total Disassemblies"...er, "Casualties", ought to either be moved right below or right above "Total Damage", and I agree that should be renamed too...maybe just to "Damage"? –flodded ☃ (gripe)  04:48, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Order and naming seem to be fixed in the template, btw (tried moving casualties up and previewing, and it still ends up last.) So I guess we'd have to fork a new one. That'd kinda go against keeping in line with previous earthquakes...but it still does seem wrong that peak acceleration and stuff like that are listed before casualties, based on what information people will want to know first and what's most important. Maybe changing the template isn't a horrible thing if needed. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  04:58, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

The T-Mobile vandal struck the template this time 2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami. I've given a level-3 vandal warning. 184.144.168.153 (talk) 13:15, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


 * And apparently 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami casualties dead as well... (more "disassembled" crap) 184.144.168.153 (talk) 13:25, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

High load page
Well... Sorry, the servers are overloaded at the moment. Too many users are trying to view this page. Please wait a while before you try to access this page again. Error reading from pool counter server 65.95.12.220 (talk) 05:40, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been editing Wikipedia for five years, and this is the first time I've seen this notice. I hope the article bears up under scrutiny! kencf0618 (talk)


 * I haven't been able to access this page for about 8 hours now... Interestingly, you can still view the source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.120.61.145 (talk) 06:18, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Maximum wave height
According to the NGDC/NOAA webpage on the tsunami the maximum wave height was 13 m at Minima Sanriku. This page refers to an eyewitness account. The source is reliable but should we add this information based on this eyewitness account? Mikenorton (talk) 11:31, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Can there be a new better section about emergency recovery efforts
Clearing roads is important. Were equipment operators mobilized to clear roads? Evacuation of flooded areas? Hotels mobilized? Crucial recovery efforts like basic road restoration effects everything, and the tsunami damaged areas should be mostly evacuated regardless of any nuclear situation.

Also note Japan has long history of tsunamis, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_tsunamis Some historical wave heights reached 25 and 30 meters, causing widespread damage and deaths. How could this tsunami history not have been addressed both in nuclear construction and general construction? Not even elevated evacuation areas. 172.162.57.215 (talk) 13:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC) BG

T-mobile vandalism
Does anyone know if we could have a bot monitor all the quake/tsunami/nuke articles specifically about this event, and auto revert anyone who inserts "disassembled" into these pages (or any T-Mobile user, if it is possible some legal edits might get caught)? (Or alternately, could it be possible to just block the T-Mobile ISP for a week?) 184.144.168.153 (talk) 13:55, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * But what if we wanted to add something like "...and a wall was disassembled to check for damage?" I think the existing measures to ban The Disassembler are sufficient (e.g. 208.84.0.0/17 seems to be blocked for over 24 hours, which will hopefully block most of that user's IPs for the moment) rather than adding a word into a spambot dictionary or whatever. The pages have been reverted very quickly before the IPs end up banned. Most of my revert attempts of The Disassembler earlier failed due to other people beating me to it, which is a good thing. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  15:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Image with locations of nuclear power plants
The image File:JAPAN EARTHQUAKE 20110311.png needs the following changes: The English Wikipedia version needs a separate file, perhaps named File:JAPAN EARTHQUAKE 20110311 EN.png, because File:JAPAN EARTHQUAKE 20110311.png is widely used in non-English Wikipedias where the date and magnitude format is correct (but the timezone still needs to be corrected).
 * The timezone is incorrect – should be JST instead of PT
 * The date format is DD.MM.YYYY – for the English Wikipedia, should be MM/DD/YYYY or 11 March 2011 or 11 Mar. 2011
 * The magnitude is 9,0 – for the English Wikipedia, should be 9.0

Obankston (talk) 16:56, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Missing and/or inaccurate information
Reposting what I said earlier, which seems to have been missed:
 * (1) Could we try and get an accurate value for the distance of the epicentre from the coastline? We have one value of 130 km from Sendai and another of 70 km, which might be referring to the area of coastline closest to the epicentre. It would be best if all references to distance from the coastline were referring to a named point on the coastline.
 * (2) The lead says the tsunami took "minutes" to reach the coast, but as far as I can make out this refers to the initial tsunami recordings, not the actual tsunami maximums that caused the damage. I think it would be more accurate to say the tsunami took around 30 minutes to reach the coast (please remember that a tsunami travels fast in deep ocean, but slows in coastal shallows), with other areas hit later (e.g. Sendai over an hour after the earthquake).
 * I find the article a little confusing about tsunami speed. Deep water tsunamis (ocean floor at earthquake location is 990 m below sea level, depth from Google Earth) can travel as fast as a jet, around 970 km/h, then slow to 50 km/h in shallow water. Around Sendai, there is 25 km of relatively shallow (30 m) waters, but at Otsuchi and Kamaishi, the ocean floor remains deep until about 8 km out. This I think explains a lot of why it hit so much faster in places which were in fact further away from the epicentre, but it would be nice to see some additional information edited by an expert in tsunamis to help clarify speed and different hit times.--Tallard (talk) 09:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I would try and do this myself, but haven't had time yet. I'm hoping others can do this, as I think these are vital aspects of the article that shouldn't be neglected. Carcharoth (talk) 05:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * (3) Finally, the fact that the earthquake lasted 5 minutes is still in the infobox but not the article (as far as I can see). This is a notable aspect of the earthquake and should be mentioned in the main text if a good reference for the duration can be found.
 * (4) There appears to be nothing yet on whether the tsunamis impacting Japan's coastline were negative or positive waves. From reading this and the video coverage, I would suspect most of the tsunamis in Japan were of the 'initial rise first' sort, but there may be aspects of the phase dynamics to all this that are difficult to put in the article right now if no sources have covered this yet. But it is something to look out for.
 * I agree, especially with point 1. I'm going to look for more references here; if the nearest point on Honshu was indeed 70km, I think we should be reporting that number primarily. It seems to me like the primary reason the 130km value came about is because of the original Sendai article title, so information was added in relevant to Sendai. I'll see if I can substantiate that 70km value elsewhere. Also, what is the Japanese media reporting as "location"? (E.g., are they reporting it in x kilometers from y location as we are at all?) As for point 2, I'm not sure how to clarify this properly. The tsunami DID arrive after minutes; like you said, it then took longer for the tsunami maximums to arrive and cause real damage. What time is generally reported? When the water starts receding (if it does), when the initial waves hit, or when the big waves hit? Point 3, earthquake duration, I believe we actually had a reference in the body saying 6 minutes which seems to be gone. The current source is simply "NBC Nightly News" with a date, I'd think at this point we could come up with a better reference and include it in the body. It made more sense to use news refs during the first few days of breaking news (I certainly inserted a bunch of NHK WORLD English live stream refs), but now a lot of that can be replaced with actual articles that the reader can click on... –flodded ☃ (gripe)  14:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Edited duration to 6 minutes and added it to the body as well with new refs; someone provided an updated reference that clearly describes it as being about 6 minutes long. Another thing that I think needs to be cleaned up along with the distance is just how we describe the quake (location, other included data like type and timezone, etc); the lede and the main both both describe it differently, and both have merits to how they describe it so neither one is simply better... I tried to clean that up slightly, but the bigger problem is how to describe the source point, e.g. Sendai, although if we end just replacing it it doesn't really matter... –flodded ☃ (gripe)  15:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

This is a good discussion. However, being new to WIKPEDIA, I wonder how anything will get changed after the good questions you ask. ONE MORE SUGGESTION: If you really want to get to the bottom of the question about "distance", one needs to distinguish between the distance of anything from the epicenter, which is the initiation point (zero length) of a rupture that exceeded 400 km in this case. The nearest points of the rupture plane to the coast all along the coast is another measure one may want to discuss, and finally what is the location of the tsunami source, an object of large dimensions (exceeding 100 km).Maxwyss (talk) 11:51, 20 March 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss

Another Edit request - Electricity section
The electricity section says: "Two of those reactors, the Fukushima Dai-ichi and Fukushima Dai-ni, were automatically taken offline"... But these are Reactor _complexes_, each with many reactors. I'd like to see the word "reactors" in the sentence fragment replaced with "reactor complexes". (Elsewhere in the article gets it right.)

And... missing in both the timeline article, and this article, is any mention of the 3 radioactive gas releases done at Fukushima Dai-ni, to prevent the kind of explosions that happened at Fukushima Dai-ichi. 173.206.138.245 (talk) 07:49, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Did the first edit. As for the second part, the press release talks about "preparation work" to release some radioactive gas at all four reactors at Fukushima Dai-ni (so was it 3 or 4?), but I can't tell if they JUST did preparation work or if it's a bad translation and they actually did release the gas. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  09:20, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for making the change about those two plants. (10 reactors, 7 operational at the time, all shut down automatically.) TEPCO reported that radiation readings at the plant gate did not increase measurably over background, and they reported it as a Level 3 incident. Both these are consistent with them actually releasing pressure. (As is the fact that the units did not explode.) I'll poke around for more definitive reporting on this.


 * According to http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/press-release-mar-132011impact-tepcoamp39s-facilities-due-miyagikenoki-earthquake-300pm http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031310-e.html, near the bottom, (past the much scarier info about Daichi), and referring to the preparations to release pressure, it says: "At present, we have decided to prepare implementing measures to reduce the pressure of the reactor containment vessel (partial discharge of air containing radioactive materials) in order to fully secure safety. These measures are considered to be implemented in Units 1, 2 and 3 and accordingly, we have reported and/or noticed the government agencies concerned." (You will need Chrome, IE, or cut'n'paste into notepad from firefox, to read the text, since it doesn't wrap properly.) 173.206.138.245 (talk) 02:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, for some reason, the shutdowns at Onagawa and Tokai have disappeared from this section of the article. Tokai had one operational unit (#2), and one in process of being dismantled. Onagawa had 3 reactors, but only 2 were online at the time of the earthquake. These 3 (of 5) reactors were also shut down automatically. (Japan only has 53 reactors to begin with, so you can see why there's a big power impact.) You can see confirmation that the reactors at these plants are "in "cold shutdown", at: http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html, update at (15 March 2011, 14:10 UTC)173.206.138.245 (talk) 02:07, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

This section also seems to imply that the 25% of TEPCO's energy production loss was all nuclear. This isn't quite accurate: They also lost a few non nuclear "thermal generating plants". In particular, they also lost: Hirono Thermal Power Station Units 2 and 4: shutdown due to earthquake Hitachinaka Thermal Power Station Unit 1: shutdown due to earthquake Kashima Thermal Power Station Units 2, 3, 5, 6: shutdown due to earthquake Ohi Thermal Power Station Unit 2: shutdown due to earthquake (Unit 3 resumed operation) Higashi-Ohgishima Thermal Power Station Unit 1: shutdown due to earthquake (plus LOTS of transmission equipment.)

See: http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/press-release-mar-132011impact-tepcoamp39s-facilities-due-miyagikenoki-earthquake-300pm http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/11031310-e.html and 173.206.138.245 (talk) 02:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

This section also states that 5 people died, implying that they died of nuclear/radiation causes. 1 of those deaths was during the quacke itself (cranedriver) and two missing person were swept out to sea by the tsunami. The link to a non-local paper 404's,, so can someone remove those deaths from this section?

Edit request from Maxwyss, 20 March 2011
I requested a change of this text before but it was not made, or made incorrectly. It is tiresome when I go to the trouble to help you, but you continue to carry statements that can be verified as wrong in any textbook. Please tell me: Why did you not use the replacement text I sent previously? I am seriously discouraged to help WIKIPEDIA. Do you require a mini-lecture, like the one below, each time someone discovers an error?

Now the wrong text reads: "One minute prior to the effects of the earthquake being felt in Tokyo, the Earthquake Early Warning system, which is connected to more than 1,000 seismometers in Japan, sent out warnings of an impending earthquake to millions."

ERROR 1: This is an inadmissible factual error. "warnings of an impending earthquake" means that the earthquake had not happened yet, at the time of the warning. That has not happened, That would be eq prediction. THIS TEXT MUST BE DELETED. Early warnings are issued after the earthquake rupture has started and they may reach the consumer, in lucky circumstances, before the strong shaking reaches him.

ERROR 2: This is an awkward, even distorted way to describe a technical aspect. The "Earthquake Early Warning system, which is connected" does not convey the true situation. The EEW is not "connected" to something. It is a system that consists of seismometers, communication lines, computers, and human quality control. PLEASE GET RID OF THIS MISLEADING WORDING.

Maxwyss (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss

Maxwyss (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Not done. The article correctly states that a warning was sent out before the earthquake waves had propagated as far as Tokyo, that is after the the earthquake was registered by seismometers nearer the epicenter, which triggered the warning. However, it probably could be reworded as "the Earthquake Early Warning system, which includes more than 1,000 seismometers in Japan, sent out warnings of the impending arrival of the seismic waves from the earthquake to millions". Mikenorton (talk) 12:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Maxwyss, please understand that we operate on references here. The current information is based off a reference that's included in the article. I understand that you're in the field and all, and we appreciate the expertise, but we still need a better reference provided than simply your assertion that the information is incorrect. I do agree with the edit Mikenorton proposes since it'll make it more accurate and eliminate one of your concerns, so I went ahead and made it. (Though the old wording wasn't technically wrong, it IS connected to those seismometers, which are what allowed it to detect the initial earthquake waves.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  14:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Pacific plate moved west or east?
In the article under "Geophysical impact" it states following: "The Pacific plate itself may have moved eastwards by up to 20 m...." Shouldn't this read westwards instead of eastwards? My common sense tells me it should be westwards. The article used for reference for this statements also says westwards: "The Pacific plate has moved a maximum of 20m westwards, but the amount of movement will vary even within the fault," said Dr Musson. 85.221.32.242 (talk) 11:30, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you are very definitely right: The Pacific plate moved westward.Maxwyss (talk) 11:53, 20 March 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss

Impact on the global supply chain of manufacturing industries
We should cover all manufacturing sectors so that readers can learn the impact on the global supply chain of key components and materials exported from Japan to the rest of the world: Automotive components, electronic devices for smartphones, tablets, and computers, steel products, jet engines, to name only a few. Please add more information on this matter. --Shinkansen Fan (talk) 16:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * http://www.chosunonline.com/news/20110319000037 東日本巨大地震：日本製部品の供給中断、世界に影響
 * 日本の震災受け供給への懸念、世界の携帯電話メーカーに波及
 * 大震災で部品供給停止、ＧＭなど世界の製造業に打撃 被災地に有力工場が集積
 * Supply concerns grow as Japan lacks parts, power

Article Name has adversely affected Google search
It's been a few days since the name of the article was changed from 2011 Sendai... to 2011 Tohoku. When it was named Sendai... a Google search revealed the Wikipedia article in the first items. Now Googling for this article has become more difficult. I realise most of the people reading this talk page know how to search beyond the first items of Google search, but I'm thinking here of Wikipedia success in general. We are used to finding Wikipedia among first search results, and for this article to have have lost first page result status because of the name change I find undesirable. In previous naming conversations, priority was given to Japanese language name while no consideration was given to article "searchability". I'd be surprised if English language speakers ever really call this event by Tohoku, I suspect Sendai and/or Japan will remain the common name and that this article will always be "off" when internet users search for it. Isn't "searchability" a top priority for naming Wikipedia articles?--Tallard (talk) 17:27, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * In short, no. Prioryman (talk) 18:23, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I really don't think it's a good idea to try to tune our article titles to suit the whims of search engines. Wikipedia really isn't supposed to be a news service, and we probably shouldn't expect to be the top search result on every breaking news story.   In any event, a Google search for japan earthquake still pulls up (appropriately, I think) List of earthquakes in Japan on the first page of hits.  A search for japan earthquake 2011 returns this article as the very first web result.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:34, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Lack of widespread looting or civil unrest
Notably absent in this 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunami is the looting or civil unrest which occurred in the immediate aftermath of several recent natural disasters of the similar scale, such as 2010 earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, and 2005 Katrina hurricane/flooding in New Orleans. I think it should be mentioned somewhere in the article. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.244.38.71 (talk) 23:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Two quotes added, but I don't know where to put them or how to title them. I bet someone else can fix this. Thanks for your thoughts, 70.244.38.71. -SusanLesch (talk) 00:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Might depend on your definition of 'looting'. On the scene Aussie TV reports showed people(presumably survivors) gathering cans and small 'kegs' of beer at one place and packets(cans?) of food at another. This is not 'looting' as per stealing electrical goods, jewelry, money or other valuables non-essential for survival which drink and food certainly are, and these were some of the worst hit areas. I believe that theft is looked on with far more disdain In Japan than in the 'west'. Japanese would simply be far less likely to take anything non-essential, and even then I think they would likely be extremely ashamed to have to do so to eat. Basically societal differences. Nb. Definition at Looting: "indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe or riot, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting." And at Wicktionary. This link and this one on the subject may be of interest. - 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 08:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, from what I've seen and know of Japanese society (so obviously a real reference would trump my anecdotal account), what you described would be their version of "looting." If it was more widely reported, a mention of some small-scale looting might be appropriate, but I haven't seen it reported like in the other places mentioned since it's not nearly as extreme as those cases. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  14:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * (Page Moved again while I was responding!) Can't claim to be expert, but maybe a long term interest in Japanese culture (w/o formal studies). Some discussion in the links I gave above referred to Cyclone Katrina, & we have heard what a 'cock-up'(cock-up) the response to that was. A person without food/water in a disaster event is, IMHO, perfectly justified (morally) in taking what they need, especially if it is just lying around and will likely just be scooped up and dumped during 'clean-up'. The 'legal'/law/Police view may be rather different of course. Indeed the people may have in fact been gathering any undamaged items to return them to their owners! (The reporters didn't speak to them so just my speculation/opinion) I can well imagine that if people had to take food, that they will eventually, if they can locate the former owners, insist on paying for what they took (probably with abject apologies for their 'shameful' behaviour!). I don't think we are likely to see any 'civil unrest' (though even Japanese are capable of it),[] unless the situation becomes dramatically worse.- 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 17:41, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I listened to a report on National Public Radio this afternoon which, among other things, noted that none of Japan's famous vending machines had been looted whatsoever. The citation I leave as an exercise to the reader. kencf0618 (talk) 01:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is not really that notable, as many of the vending machines contain an emergency mode that can be activated which in turn puts them in to free drink mode. It would be rather counterproductive to attempt to break one open when simply peeling back a sticker and pulling a lever will do. - Paul Mundt (talk) 04:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the clarification. The NPR report made no mention of this emergency mode, but it certainly demonstrates the level of disaster preparation in Japan! kencf0618 (talk) 20:00, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to the user who has added the section, Response of Japanese citizens, citing lack of looting or civil unrest in the aftermath. I initially suggested including a mention of this notable non-event. But I'm unable to do it myself now that the article is restricted to editing by established registered users only.

Feel free to add this one more quote to the section. This is on-the-ground observation by several professional reporters who contributed to an Associated Press article, and presumably offers more credibility. "Four days on, there is little of the public anger and frustration that so often bursts forth in other countries. ... Amid the chaos, foreign journalists have remarked on the polite demeanor, the lack of anger, the little if any looting or profiteering that seems to characterize disasters elsewhere." -- Alabaster, Jay, and Olsen, Kelly (March 15, 2011). "Tsunami tests Japan's resilient spirit". Breitbart.com. Retrieved March 16, 2011. -- By PL 70.248.184.55 (talk) 05:30, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * A Guardian report actually mentions some theft, break-ins and profiteering. "After Japan's quake and tsunami, freezing weather threatens relief". The Guardian, 16 March 2011 retrieved, 17 March 2011- 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 18:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course, there're some theft or break-ins. But they don't amount to widespread looting. I've changed the discussion section title without the word "absence", which does connotate zero amount. Also the once new article section, Response of Japanese citizens, was properly titled, and should be kept, though it need expansion and tremendous improvement. Don't know why it's been removed. Seems odd that the main article includes the responses of a wide variety of countries and institutions, but those of the victims/survivors themselves are excluded. Please explain. -- 70.244.34.140 (talk) 00:57, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * See section 2011 T.e.a.t.(!) — Response of Japanese citizens. I believe that this entire section has been removed previously, and then reinstated. - 220.101 User talk:220.101.28.25\ 12:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Please fix two of the three links cited in the last paragraph under the subsection Citizens, Response in Japan. Thanks. PL 69.155.134.119 (talk) 09:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Prophecy materials
Is there a wikipedia policy to only limit this to a scientific type article only? I added some predictions related materials. This is being heavily discussed by areas near Japan at the moment. User Flodded first marked it as vandalism. Then marked it a second time as non-scientific. Would it not be good to further expand on Japanese prophecies as well as materials from other cultures? Benjwong (talk) 06:44, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia's policy is that of a neutral point of view, so one's belief or disbelief in such material should not come into account. I am not against having a short, focussed section on prophecies. AugustinMa (talk) 10:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem lies in finding WP:V & WP:RS. Kittybrewster  ☎  11:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ask enough fortune cookies/future tellers and somebody's vague prediction will become true. -Koppapa (talk) 11:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Profecies are really a problem. They are never able to fix, individual, time, location and name at the same time; mankind is always free. John Leary told an evacuation in East Asia. But the Pacific Ring of Fire has a cycle, with Sumatra 2004 and Chile 2010 were seems to be a chain reaction now. You can assume anything, arithmetics, profecy or even that profecy is arithmetics. I tend to assume that good profecy is just prognosis of a good engineer, but then, God's Spirit is a Good Engineer.
 * August 2, 2008: “My people, this massive evacuation of people will be from a natural disaster that will happen along the Asian Pacific Rim of fire. The many people in the vision left walking because the roads were too clogged with vehicles that were deadlocked. There will be a combination of earthquakes and volcanoes on the east coast of Asia that will trigger a fear of evacuations. Many will have their lives saved by this immediate leaving. The damage from this event will affect the economies in this area, and it is a sign for coming major earthquake events on the West coast of America on the eastern Pacific Rim along North America. When these events are finished, there will be some major changes in geography all around the Pacific Rim of fire. You have been seeing increasing activity in these areas as a forewarning of these events to come...” johnleary.com --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:36, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you ever considered prophecies are purposely kept short and cryptic for various reasons, like escape persecutions, fear of punishment etc. Benjwong (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I do apologize for initially assuming vandalism rather than assuming good faith; it honestly seemed like vandalism to me. However, I still absolutely do not believe that this information belongs in this article. The very nature of these types of predictions makes them incompatible with scientific discussion. If there were wide media reports about some specific prophecy, that might be worthy of a mention (of the reports, that is), but in this case your prophecy is from some author in Hong Kong, not even Japan (I point that out to rebut your point about it being "heavily discussed"), and I haven't seen any media reports of Japanese people widely thinking some prophecy has come to pass or anything like that. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  19:57, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * "The very nature of these types of predictions makes them incompatible with scientific discussion." Disagree: in fact, scientific is one and one is two, profecy is one and one is two, media hype "scientific discussion" is one and one isn't two :( --Chris.urs-o (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Prophecy is "one and one is whatever we interpret it to be that people might believe." Media hype can certainly be the same, which is why we try to be careful about using reliable sources, etc. For one, whether or not this is a prophecy, I do not think the provided source can be stated as reliable. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  20:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, we always end up in a discussion God exists/ God doesn't exist. About the source, the author in Hong Kon I don't know, johnleary.com I do know many years now. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 20:40, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you guys are mistaken about the cultural part. Prophecies have no geographical or political boundaries.  A french fortune teller can predict events outside of france for example.  Vice versa a HK fortune teller can make all the worldwide predictions he/she chooses. And yes it is heavily discussed, just not in mainstream media reports. Benjwong (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think that predictions should be included but it is notable that in 2007 Satake et al. said that a repeat of the 869 earthquake and tsunami was 99% probable over the next 30 years. Mikenorton (talk) 00:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Not a prophecy, so the rest of this section isn't even relevant... I agree that bit of research should be included, especially since we already have information about what scientists expected from the fault line, how the quake was similar to the 869 quake, etc. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  03:17, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll close. Disagree: there are good predictions by probability, statics, kinetics etc.; there is good prophecy (Nostradamus ), there is "profecy" by good networking and inside information (Oracle of Delphi) and there is false prophecy corrupted by despotism. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 06:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Whether there is false prophecy elsewhere is not relevant at all. When you edit an article with on basketball topic, do you actually worry that the other 40 million other people who can't play basketball. No. Obviously this prediction is correct because the earthquake event did occur.  If wiki only accepts scientific analysis, that's fine. We can stop there. Benjwong (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The balance When dealing with this sort of content is that Wiki can describe what a group of people believe, but cannot take a stance. We cannot say "The prophecy has come true!" or imply that. However, I have no problem with inserting a sentence or two that indicates (FROM A REPUTABLE SOURCE) that some percent of Japanese see it that way. That's heavily heavily contingent on the reputable source. Wiki can describe people's reactions to it without endorsing or offering evaluation of the veracity of the reaction/prophecy.Jbower47 (talk) 22:38, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of Wikinews links
user:Ohconfucius has been deleting Wikinews links from the various subarticles, are we good with that? I noticed that the Nuclear timeline article no longer linked to wikinews next to the date at which the wikinews article related to, then saw that several other articles now no longer have Wikinews. Ohconfucius's edit comments have no indication that any such edit is taking place, only that some fixing of date formats is occurring, which is quite misleading. 65.95.15.189 (talk) 21:21, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This appears to be a very well established editor who does note some "date-related cleanup projects" on his/her user page, so I'd assume good faith... –flodded ☃ (gripe)  21:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * ...though if they're not back shortly, we should probably put them back and contact that editor. Don't see why some sort of maintenance would remove them for more than a little while. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  01:48, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * On his talk page, he said they were not worthy of being on Wikipedia. That still doesn't explain why his edit comment did not indicate the removal. 65.95.15.189 (talk) 03:28, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a direct breach of WP:SISTER. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 12:59, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but what's the breach? That isn't policy, just common sense. It wasn't right to remove the links for his reason given but I see nothing actionable in it per se unless it escalate(s/d) into an edit war. Anyway, best to keep this discussion confined to one page for easier following; suggest the thread at WP:ANI. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs • Editor review) 13:06, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry... actionable? Please link to the diff with my demand for 'action'. The guideline specifically encourages use of sister project links. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 13:08, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:SISTER encourages the use of links where those links "are likely to be useful to our readers". Ohconfucius stated that "None of those second-hand 'news reports' adds anything that isn't already covered by the given article or sister articles. In general terms, the sources cited in our articles are more extensive and up to date than those in WN, and this case is no exception." This does not seem an unreasonable opinion.--Pontificalibus (talk) 13:15, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is aimed to be a starting point for people researching a given topic. One of the most fascinating ways to research any topic is to go through contemporary news reports and watch the story unfold - something an encyclopaedia, as a conprehensive overview, cannot give. The two projects closely complement each other. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 14:50, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The point of Wikinews is to be a news site. The point of Wikipedia is to be a historical record of events. The two are very different aims. Right now, as the events are happening, the two may seem redundant, and to an extent probably are. In the future, though, the WP article will (should) be written in the past tense, show the entire story from the perspective of the present day, basically be a very broad overview of these events. Meanwhile, the value of the Wikinews links increases over time, because they show the event as it was happening, a very different perspective than that offered by Wikipedia. As this topic in WP reaches maturity, rather than being a random collection of news stories, WP an WN articles end up complementing, rather than going against, each other. C628 (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm with user:Ohconfucius on this, they don't add anything to the article. The rest is irrelevant. 86.159.92.13 (talk) 02:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I would strongly urge you to review the talkpage of WP:SISTER, Blood Red Sandman. It discusses (and links to further discussions, with additional explanation) why that page isn't considered a Wikipedia guideline, and hasn't been since 2008.  The inclusion of links to non-Wikipedia sites – whether part of WMF sister projects or not – provides an implicit endorsement of those links' quality and relevance to the topic at hand.  Among other reasons, there are serious and legitimate concerns about linking to freely-editable content.  (There's no double standard here; we don't consider Wikipedia articles reliable sources either.)
 * If you would like to make an argument for the content at Wikinews being a suitable external link containing additional information relevant to this topic in this particular instance, please do so. Assertions that such links must be included just because they're on a sister project, however, are insufficient. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have not made such an assertion, and have made an argument for inclusion already - above. If it is not a guideline, then why does it say it is? But, no matter. Wikinews is not "freely-editable" in any normal sense and hasn't been since ('07? '08? The latter, I think). Everything is factchecked, POV-checked, style-checked and copyright-checked before it goes out. This is enforced by use of FlaggedRevs. Further information on that's available at n:Wikinews:Reviewing articles; an important thing to note is that it's not a mere vandalism-control similar to Pending Changes. The historic value of snapshots in time is discussed above - "the value of the Wikinews links increases over time" is an excellant point. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 15:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'd say in general I'm adverse to removal of properly sourced content on a unilateral basis, especially if it's based on whether someone thinks it's worth or not. If it's an RS, then I'd advocate for discussion of removal, not unilateral action. Someone, in good faith, went to the trouble to add that content. I don't think it's unreasonable to at least talk through the issue before deleting it without a glaring issue (non-sourced, vandalism, etc)Jbower47 (talk) 22:42, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Tidal flooding
Shouldn't this article cover the subsidence of coastal areas, now rendering large zones lower than high-tide levels? 184.144.166.85 (talk) 06:25, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. I read about this somewhere as well. Could you provide some examples of sources that cover this? Carcharoth (talk) 11:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * From Archive 3 there is |Quake this source which refers to 2 ft (60 cm) of subsidence of a 250 km long section of the coast. Mikenorton (talk) 21:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There's also . 184.144.166.85 (talk) 01:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Source needed for quake being 70km? off the coast
There was a discussion started by Carcharoth, one point of which was concerning the distance from the coastline. The article has stated 130km from Sendai since I started editing it, but there's also a bit of text that claims 70km. If you look at a map, it is indeed clear that the Oshika Peninsula, which sticks down into the water kinda between the epicenter and Sendai, is roughly half the distance from the epicenter that Sendai is. We even mention in the lede that the quake was 130km off the coast of the Oshika Peninsula (which is wrong), and that it happened there near Sendai (implying Sendai is on the Oshika Peninsula as well, also wrong.) I believe the only reason we have the value based on distance on Sendai is due to the article's original name.

Anyways, I'd like to change this to 70km or whatever the more appropriate value is. We're reporting it in our lede, and it's an important value that's off, so I think it needs to be fixed. However, neither of the two references for that 70km value actually contains a reference to that value (one of them says 200km off the coast, the other only has distance from Tokyo), but again it is pretty obvious from a map that based on the epicenter location and 130km from Sendai, 70km is a reasonable value for the Oshika Peninsula. The Oshika Peninsula article also says it was the closest point on land (other than some tiny island) to the epicenter, but neither of the two references for that backs it up. I can't seem to find a better reference; can anyone else? Perhaps a Japanese one?

Would it be WP:SYNTH to plug the epicenter coords into Google Earth and measure to the nearest point on the mainland, or is that a reasonable use of WP:CALC...it's not technically a calculation (though in some ways it is), but it's along the spirit of the policy. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  12:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I took some measurements in Google Earth just to confirm the values. It's roughly 67km to that tiny island off the Oshika Peninsula, 72km to the closest point on the coastline of the mainland Oshika Peninsula itself, and about 118km to the closest bit of coastline to Sendai. (So my measurement matches with the current 119km value from the USGS, I'm likely using a slightly different endpoint since it's hard to tell where Sendai's coast ends and the next town begins.) So reporting "about 70km" to the Oshika Peninsula seems valid. This seems like a fairly "routine calculation"; I simply asked Google Earth to calculate the distance between a known set of coordinates and a clear visual reference on a map. Anyone agree or disagree that this is usable under WP:CALC? (Edit: 38.312°N, 141.541°E is a good point on Oshika Peninsula to check with Google Maps to see where things are, that's one of the closest points to the epicenter. I'm not sure if you can check distance between lat/long points there, but you can use the ruler in Google Earth to do it rather precisely.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  13:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * That tiny island, Kinkasan, article has no information about the quake. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 13:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It does now. Edit: There's an even smaller island that's the 67km one I meant, Kinkasan is about 1km further. Google Earth has no English name for the tiny island, so we can't list it by name as we could with Kinkasan. So "approximately 70km off Oshika Peninsula..." is probably best since saying "67km off the coast of a small Japanese island off of Oshika Peninsula with no English name but that literally translates to 'Random Small Island off Oshika Peninsula'" is a bit excessive. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  13:51, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * See this source. It says 130km ESE off Ojika/Oshika Peninsula. Oda Mari (talk) 14:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The Ojika Peninsula, apparently with Mt. Otakamori on it, is 50km to the west of the Oshika Peninsula according to Google Maps (but that may be wrong and they may be the same; the 130km value from Oshika is definitely wrong though, as easily shown on a map.) However, the Wikipedia article claims they're the same peninsula, but this seems to may be incorrect. However, it doesn't matter since the distance estimate from the nearest mainland definitely doesn't make sense anyways; simply look at how far Sendai is, and how far the Oshika Peninsula is. I went ahead and made the change, because the lede was incorrect about at least two facts (it being 120km off the Oshika Peninsula, and Sendai being implied as the "near" location on the Oshika Peninsula, which it isn't.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  15:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ojika/Oshika is like the different between the pronunciation of to-may-to and to-ma-to for tomato. I personally call the peninsula Ojika. Mt. Otakamori lies in the Miyato Island, Higashimatsushima, Miyagi. Oda Mari (talk) 16:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, Google Maps is wrong then; at least we don't have to fix Wikipedia on that one. :) But the data from that reference is wrong; I think they meant to say 130km ESE of Sendai. Just look at the relative positions of the Oshika Peninsula and Sendai on a map compared to the earthquake location. The scale bars do indicate about 70km and 130km respectively. (Oshika Peninsula is that thing sticking down about halfway between Sendai and the epicenter, unless that's wrong too, but multiple sources seem to agree on that including the Wikipedia page.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  16:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Google uses Zenrin's Japanese map and it probably covers the territorial waters but I'm not sure if it covers exclusive Economic Zone and have no idea how does Google deal with open sea and its accuracy. I found another RS. Hope it helpful. Oda Mari (talk) 16:59, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks like Bing uses Zenrin as well for Japan, I'd thought that might be a useful comparison. Regardless, the Oshika Peninsula is a pretty decent little chunk of land with other sources backing up its location, so we don't even really need to care about what's covered or not offshore since it's a peninsula; there could be tiny islands missing so distance to the nearest land might be off, but not the distance to Oshika (thus part of continuing to use it as the reference point.) Thanks for that additional resource, but it doesn't seem to have anything other sources don't have. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  17:55, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Btw, it appears the reason the Zenrin data seems wrong is that it has no entry for Oshika Peninsula if you search except for a few entries for similar business names/etc...and on Google Maps the first of which happens to be located near Miyato Island, which is why I thought that was "Ojika Peninsula." However, there's a "Oshika Peninsula" label (probably from a different data source) where Oshika/Ojika Peninsula actually is, so it does appear in the right location and labeled correctly on Google Maps/etc due to that. The description of Kinkasan's location, etc, back that up. (Also, my 118km to Sendai...USGS is actually 129km, but that's for the distance to the city center, whereas my distance was to the coastline.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  18:19, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The USGS uses the phrase "epicentral region" in conjunction with ( not instead of) "epicenter" (38.322°N 142.369°E) at. Perhaps this phrase may help by slightly re-focusing the explicit thrust of this thread? --Tenmei (talk) 18:18, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know, the news tends to be all over the reported epicenter, etc, and that tends to be one of the major pieces of information people want presented in a more descriptive fashion than just coordinates, I think. So it makes sense to have an accurate description of the epicenter location when we have one, since "epicentral region" just isn't common terminology, so it especially makes sense to keep it out of the lede. Then again, I just noticed that the USGS information states a +/- 13.5km horizontal margin of error, so a number like "72km" may be too specific due to that. Perhaps we need to say "60 - 90km off the coast" or something more vague instead. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  18:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Noticed you edited to highlight "in conjunction with"... I don't disagree, I was specifically referring to not mentioning it in the lede since it's less common terminology and requires a little bit of explanation, whereas epicenter doesn't and is basically an "expected" value to see in the summary of an earthquake. I agree it makes sense to add that into the main article body. (Also realized that some positional uncertainty is normal and expected, so using a value like 72km isn't bad, it'd just be nice to have a better reference. The USGS uses specific values for distances to cities, on the same document where they specify the uncertainty.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  18:34, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We have no disagreement. I endorse the reasoning of diffs here and here. In the context of this thread only, please recall two sentences which are already in our article. --Tenmei (talk) 19:40, 22 March 2011
 * "A quake of this magnitude usually has a rupture length of at least 480 km and generally requires a long, relatively straight fault surface. Because the plate boundary and subduction zone in the area of the rupture is not very straight, it is unusual for the magnitude of an earthquake to exceed 8.5...." -- see USGS Poster "Great Tohoku Earthquake"
 * I changed +/- to read "approximately" for location (and added it in the body where we refer to the 72km number again), and just removed it from depth. From both the bulletin (you can see there's no uncertainty given for depth, while there is for position) and my brief research, it looks like depth is more accurately known, so it doesn't really need that "approximately" qualifier I think. If anyone knows contrary, please contradict me... –flodded ☃ (gripe)  21:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry to contradict you flodded, but the 32 km depth from the USGS is marked "set by the location programme". It's OK for now, but it will be refined once full waveform modelling using both P and S-waves is carried out, which may take a few months to get reported - expect a few papers on the earthquake mechanics to be rushed out fairly soon. Mikenorton (talk) 21:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope, I was actually slightly curious about what "set by location program" meant, which I guess means some non-refined depth-determining program was used as one of the inputs to calculate the other data, or that they just couldn't generate the stdev estimation for it. I added "approximately" to the depth in the lede per that information. –flodded ☃ (gripe)  22:16, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's my understanding of those words as well, I imagine they set a rough depth and then use that to produce the other information. Note that on the USGS poster the main event is given a depth of 24.4 km, which sounds a bit more precise. Mikenorton (talk) 22:28, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that value on the poster is wrong. On the main USGS Tohoku page, the depth is 32km. However, when the magnitude was still 8.9, the depth was listed as 24.4km at that time. It was updated to 32km in tandem with the magnitude being updated to 9.0, suggesting both came from the same new data... The poster is a more generalized view of things, so I'd expect it to be less accurate. (Note that I specifically put sigfig=3 on the undefined undefined s used for the 32km depth, so that it'd get the same 19.9mi conversion as the USGS page and not convert to 20mi; in other words, I think their value is indeed 32.0km, if that's what you meant by more precise.) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  22:33, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I was referring to the 24.4 value but I take your point about it being an earlier estimate. Mikenorton (talk) 23:18, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * In other words, the "saw-tooth Sanriku Coast" (三陸リアス式海岸) is somewhat mirrored in the irregularity of the undersea epicentral region. This does not need to be in the introductory paragraph, but it should considered in our editing discussion. --Tenmei 22 March 2011
 * The quote above refers to the shape of the whole rupture surface and says nothing about the irregularity of the epicentral region. The 'epicentral region' of an earthquake is defined as an elliptical area that contains the region of highest felt intensity of an earthquake and is used for identifying the likely epicentre for historical events (described here) - on the poster I take it to mean simply 'the region within which the epicenter lies' as a title for the inset on the larger map rather than this more specific meaning. Mikenorton (talk) 20:21, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've reworded that section. Mikenorton (talk) 20:30, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Since consensus (so far) seems to favor sticking with this 72km value and location...perhaps we should use the map from Tōhoku? It has the region in bold, but of course more areas were affected than just the ones in bold. But I think we need to be more specific on the map than just labeling "Sendai." We could use that map and still do the same city dots...or if the current map style is more appropriate, outline the Tōhoku region, and in either case have a line pointing to that area labeled "Tōhoku region" to differentiate it from a city marker. I have little graphics experience, someone who knows how to do this without fumbling around for an hour is more than welcome to do so. :) –flodded ☃ (gripe)  23:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Potassium iodide
With the increased acquisition and prophylactic consumption of the pills, it would be good to increase the potassium iodide article on the effects of overdosing on it. The news channels keep saying something about thyroid damage. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 13:31, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Peak ground acceleration values
On a couple of occasions over the past few days I have expanded information regarding peak ground acceleration, to clarify the figures, and each time it has been removed. I have no intention of starting an edit war, but I do feel we need to provide clear and unambiguous figures. Currently, the article states "Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) recorded a peak ground acceleration of 2.99 g (29.33 m/s²). The highest acceleration recorded in the Tokyo metropolitan area was 0.16 g." This is a nonsense comparison, since the two measurements are calculated differently. PGA is recorded in three directions at each station by accelographs: two horizontal (usually N-S and E-W) and vertically. When reporting the PGA for an area, the USGS (and many other countries) quote the single largest figure (eg. the 0.16g in Tokyo). The Japanese system is to quote the vector sum of the three figures: i.e the square root of the sum of the squares of each component. The 2.99 figure is obtained by that method (specified in the cite), and is consequently higher than the standard reporting used by most other sources. My edits identified this figure (and the one in the infobox) as a vector sum, and added the single-value figure from USGS so that people could understand the PGA in the most commonly-used parameters. It is pointless giving figures in this article which mislead by inaccuracy, and to imply (to most readers) an astonishingly high PGA. I will restore my information, with a link to this talk message. If anyone feels this clarification is unnecessary, then perhaps we can debate it here rather than removing it (perhaps there is a good reason not to explain the figures, and people won't be misled by our comparison of apples with oranges, but I'd like to debate that here rather than the brief edit summaries which only imply a lack of comprehension.). Gwinva (talk) 00:04, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Seiche in Sognefjorden Norway
Two meter high waves in a Norwegian fjord. The fjord's natural frequency and the waves from this earthquake made standing waves called: seiche. Wondering if this is interesting information for this page? Reference (in Norwegian): VG with video and Sogn Avis Gryphonis (talk) 00:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I would think this isn't relevant enough to include in the article, being a detail about a loosely-linked event happening elsewhere in the world, without casualties/deaths. Definitely belongs on the seiche page I'd say, and it's already there so that's good! –flodded ☃ (gripe)  03:25, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a similiar seiche effect mentioned in the 2010 Chile earthquake article. --Matthiasb (talk) 10:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps there should be an 2011 Tōhoku tsunami impact outside of Japan article to cover the impact of the tsunami outside of Japan, since it is less substantial than in Japan, and noticeably separatable from the quake and nuke incident. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 04:17, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 64.185.49.225, 23 March 2011
Clicking the map for a larger view returns a map that does not include the earthquake. Please correct to show map with earthquake epicenter.

64.185.49.225 (talk) 16:17, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: File:Japan location map with side map of the Ryukyu Islands.svg is used to show the area and then graphics for the quake and two cities are overlayed on top of it, meaning they're not in the actual image, which is why you can't see them when you click on it. Two other images on the article, File:Map of Sendai Earthquake 2011.jpg and File:JAPAN EARTHQUAKE 20110311.png, can be enlarged however. — Bility (talk) 17:40, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Radiation Perspective Chart
Randall Munroe has constructed a chart that is very handy for explaining how insignificant the radiation occuring in Japan actually is. He released it into public domain.

"For people who asked about Japanese translations or other types of reprinting: you may republish this image anywhere without any sort of restriction; I place it in the public domain. I just suggest that you make sure to include a clear translation of the disclaimer that the author is not an expert, and that anyone potentially affected by Fukushima should always defer to the directives of regional health authorities." http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/

It has been uploaded here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Radiation_Dose_Chart_by_Xkcd.png

I'm not good with formatting, but someone who is should add it to the page, or related pages to the disaster. --Tarage (talk) 05:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Article Needs Sub-Page (List) of Severely Damaged Towns and Cities
A common Wikipedia practice is to title such a sub-page something like this: "List of Towns and Cities Heavily Damaged by the 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami".

A second list of towns and cities affected by significant radiation contamination might also be a good idea.

173.246.35.179 (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Or a clickable/labeled map. Abductive  (reasoning) 07:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Infobox
Someone fix the infobox. Pubserv (talk) 15:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Specifically the "countries or regions affected" data doesn't render properly for some reason. Brand meister  t   14:11, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Currently trying to track down the problem, but going back to old versions takes a long time to reload. Mikenorton (talk) 14:18, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed, I still don't know exactly why it failed to display properly, but I found the edit where it all went wrong and messed around until it worked. Mikenorton (talk) 14:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Pubserv (talk) 15:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Coordinate error
The following coordinate fixes are needed for

—165.155.204.70 (talk) 13:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * . A joke, apparently. Deor (talk) 11:24, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Citizens section
This section (or at least the first part of it) has been the subject of dispute, but there has been no discussion about it here (or at least none that I can find in the archives). It has just been tagged for its tone, which I tend to agree with. It would be good to reach consensus here on whether it should stay as it is, be modified or removed completely. Mikenorton (talk) 15:12, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The first and second paragraph of the Response/Citizens section includes content which I find both unencyclopedic and misleading, and thus objectionable.


 * It is both highly unencyclopedic and misleading to begin with a quotation stating "The morality of the Japanese society is amazing. Not one mention or incident of looting or violence" when in fact, as stated in a following paragraph, looting did actually happen. Also, I find the mention of "the Japanese trait of gaman" highly unencyclopedic. I also find the mention of "a very Japanese deference to authority" unencyclopedic and somewhat misleading. Everyone here knows that if a similar event and response took place in any other country, for example Iceland, no one would write about some "exotic special trait" of the Icelandic people. The paragraphs were written with an irrational and unencyclopedic "japanophilic" bias and need to be corrected or removed.


 * I suggest that the mentioned paragraphs be removed in their entirety.MindStorM (talk) 15:33, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * What exactly is misleading about it? It's a sourced quote and a sourced section. OhNo itsJamie Talk 16:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think that it should start with the quotes, that just looks strange to my eyes. I think that the section could be usefully shorter with only the second of the quotes and that incorporated into the last paragraph, I'll see if I can come up with some words as a suggested alternative. Mikenorton (talk) 16:37, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that starting the section with a quote is awkward. I have no problems with making the section smaller or rewording it. OhNo itsJamie  Talk 16:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That' silly. Even if there were exactly zero disaster-related lootings anywhere in Japan initially as the quote suggests, there were reports of lootings afterwards as mentioned in a following paragraph, and thus it is misleading to begin the section with a quotation from a random "Japanese-American citizen living in Tokyo" the content of which didn't hold true for long afterwards if it ever did. It is misleading to first suggest that "there wasn't a single looting" when in fact there were lootings as mentioned afterwards.


 * I suggest that the first and second paragraphs be entirely removed. This is also good for the balance of the Response section.


 * PS. I smell an irrational bias from a top 100 editor. I never liked wikipedia anyway because of this crap. MindStorM (talk) 16:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * PS: Be aware of our no personal attacks policy. Continuing to make veiled attacks will result in a block. OhNo itsJamie  Talk 16:47, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * My suggested alternative is below (I've added a reflist to show which refs are being used):

There was a notable lack of large scale looting and disorder following the earthquake, and this was attributed not only to Japanese forbearance, an attitude sometimes referred to as gaman, but also to laws that encourage honesty, a strong police presence and three main clans of Yakuza gangs patrolling their territories. A reporter for the Canadian The Globe and Mail wrote, "As one catastrophe piled on top of another, a very Japanese deference to authority emerged, as well as a national desire to see civility prevail, no matter the circumstances." Some people devastated by the quake began, however, to question the government's effort in providing food, clothing, electricity, heat, and phone service. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano later said, "In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster."

Some ten days after the quake, reports did begin to emerge of incidents of looting and theft in quake and tsunami-hit areas. By 20 March 2011, 250 thefts, with ¥4.9 million in merchandise stolen from stores and ¥5.8 million in cash, were reported to the Miyagi Prefectural Police. Witnesses reported thieves stealing cash and bank books from smashed houses, looting goods from stores, and siphoning gas from abandoned or damaged vehicles. Around ¥40 million was reportedly stolen from a bank in Kesennuma, Miyagi.

Is this an improvement? I await comments. Mikenorton (talk) 16:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Definitely an improvement at least MindStorM (talk) 16:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * However, I disagree with mentioning "gaman". It's simply not encyclopedic. MindStorM (talk) 17:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks better to me. I don't see the problem with "gaman." And what does "not encyclopedic" mean exactly? I know that term is often used in Wikipedia discussions, but you should be able to say more specifically why it should not be included, rather than just repeating, "it shouldn't be there." OhNo itsJamie  Talk 18:16, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the section with the proposed content by . Goodvac (talk) 08:09, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Map needed
This article needs a map of northeastern Japan marked with the extent of innundation. Does anybody know of such a map, or of information that would allow such a map to be made? HowardMorland (talk) 03:56, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Here is a starting point. I see a problem in making a good graphic illustration of this information because the east-west dimension of the innundation area is so small compared with the north-south length of coastline involved.  I don't think this link is included in the External Links section of the article, so I guess I should put it there.
 * http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullmaps_sa.nsf/luFullMap/6A50E2DC420D932C8525785500686386/$File/map.pdf HowardMorland (talk) 04:21, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

What is in a shelter?
Is it possible to describe the shelters generally? I wish to know more about the facility, service, management and problems of the shelters. Thank you.114.25.190.196 (talk) 08:41, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Are all shelters the same or are they all different?
 * Are those buildings designed to be shelters?
 * How do people in the shelters dial and take phone calls? Or they use their own cellphones?
 * How are the shelters managed? How do they manage disputes and crimes?


 * This is a talk page for this wikipedia article. It's purpose is to discuss changes to the article, not the topic in general. Perhaps you should try exploring some of the external links listed in the article. Alternatively there are a great number of political, etc talk forums which may give you a better chance at getting information. Yahoo and other providers have "questions" places where you can pose questions like this to their readership.Jbower47 (talk) 16:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Should i add this information to the page? I dont think this is relivent to the topic though...TheApplePi (talk) 04:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

US Navy


How come in the "international" part of the article, 3/4 pictures are mentioning US Army/US Navy. Are these the only pictures available? Seems like a case of "We helped the mostest". Alepik (talk) 18:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We have some damage pictures donated by locals but I think all of our photos (about 200 now) of relief operations are U.S. government works. The U.S. government does not create copyrighted works so we can use all their photos while other countries have to specifically freely-license an image for us to use be able to use it. Perhaps we will get some private or NGO images after the immediate disaster settles down. Rmhermen (talk) 03:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * We now have one non-U.S. sourced image. It might fit somewhere in the page: Rmhermen (talk) 14:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this is simply a case of the US military producing tons of public domain images while other countries aren't doing that. Aside from the US, I don't believe any mainly English-speaking country releases government/military photographs into the public domain, because they're all commonwealth realms and fall under crown copyright. Surely there are some, however, that feature other countries.  Swarm   X 01:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * For the sake of clarity, this does not mean removing the images that we had.  Swarm   X 11:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

editor deletion problems
hello I have run into some editor who keeps removing a picture of bought-out empty store shelves in Japan, which are in the section "economic effects"... the claim is that the picture is unrelated to the text, however for obvious reasons I don't really buy that. Also as you can see from earlier topics here we already are having a need for more japan-created images and these store shelf pictures are some of the few from the disaster. So hopefully people can either explain what I am missing or help me with this editor. At this point I have tried 3 different images of store shelves and all 3 have been deleted, so I guess we are dealing with a pov situation but I can't exactly figure out why. 66.220.113.98 (talk) 01:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It was I, and had no hard feeling, but the image is WP:OR. Empty shelves could have dozens of reasons unrelated to disaster (e.g. often retail buyers empty a shelf for a moment, etc.). Further, this empty shelf situation really varied from shelf to shelf and shop to shop. The image with a queue to 7/11 is much, much better in this regard - anyone who's been in Japan would say it is weird in any circumstances. Materialscientist (talk) 01:14, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"Gaman"
I suggest that the reference to "gaman" in the (Response in Japan / Citizens) section be removed, since it is unneeded, misleading, and even biased with irrational "japanophilia", and therefore highly unencyclopedic. MindStorM (talk) 16:01, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It's well-sourced; in fact, the term is used in the title of the source. OhNo itsJamie  Talk 16:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

addition of minor edit
i think that the article should include the Mandatory U.S. evacuation (50 km from centerpoints. centerpoints being the two nuclear power plants mentioned in the article) and the added text be paired with the japanese evacuation orders

[note: cited from Today on NBC (special episode crisis in japan)(aired approx 2 or 3 days after the earthquake)]

proposed edit: Residents within a 20 km (12 mi) radius of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and a 10 km (6 mi) radius of the Fukushima II Nuclear Power Plant were evacuated. In addition the U.S. ordered all us citizens to evacuate beyond 50 km of the plant.[citation needed]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.38.188.182 (talk • contribs) 18:27, 31 March 2011
 * ✅ Goodvac (talk) 21:48, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Earthquake section problem...
Last evening I watched the excellent PBS special on the quake and they mentioned a village with a 30 ft. seawall that was topped by a 30 ft. wave, explaining that the coastline in that area had dropped 3 ft. Reading this article for the first time, I found in paragraph 3 under the Earthquake heading a mention that the sea floor rose by "several meters", however the reference used did not actually mention that fact, if indeed it is a fact. The reference did, however, mention that the quake was only 15 miles deep, which certainly is extremely significant and I cannot find the depth mentioned in our article. I will fix this if nobody else will step in to do it, but not having worked on this article it sure would be a lot easier if someone who has been working on it would take care of it. Gandydancer (talk) 21:21, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Length
The article is too long for editing/saving it as a whole, most likely because of too many templates, and the size will only grow. We must decide how to handle this ASAP. Materialscientist (talk) 07:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Consider creating a 'damage and effects' article from that section of this article, leaving just a summary here. Hmains (talk) 16:25, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please provide feedback on this issue. On Windows Vista + Firefox + fast internet + fast PC I can not save any edit without getting a wikimedia software message error, even when editing a small section. Do others experience that? To me the situation seems grave and thus I am considering boldly moving a large section (like suggested above) to a new article, letting others to write a summary. Materialscientist (talk) 07:56, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I get that error message whether I'm on Windows Vista, Mac, or openSUSE. A separate "damage and effects" article would be good. Then we can work out a merge with Impact of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on the video game industry. Goodvac (talk) 08:18, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * (The issue is not with the code length but with the vast number of templates). I would actually move not the "Damage and effects", which is a core part of the article, but sections from "Response in Japan" and below (or "International response" and below), because they are secondary, and less informative. How about that? Materialscientist (talk) 08:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * it's definitely too unwieldy, it often takes me a few attempts to load the article. I would hive off "Economic impact" into a subsidiary article as that section can only get longer as time goes on, also much more of the Fukushima nuclear section needs to go into the side article (having said that, Fukushima I nuclear_accidents is itself very long and would in turn benefit from most of the timeline stuff being moved to the Timeline of the Fukushima nuclear accidents (or deleted if it's already there, which is probably the case). Samatarou (talk) 21:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This is all relative, because wikipedia-wise, it's under 9000 words, so its size is fine. Thegreatdr (talk) 21:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Please see my comment above - it is not the number of words/bytes but the number of templates, which should normally be under 600. Most refs are templated here + other templates are present. This brings the code parsing to an unstable state. Materialscientist (talk) 01:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm also unable to edit the article. Can anybody, and if so, how? Jpatokal (talk) 09:25, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If you get the blue screen saying "wikimedia error" after saving your edit, this doesn't mean the edit is not saved (but it might take a minute more to process). I normally hit "back in the browser and re-save it (to be sure), get blue screen again and check the article history - the edit normally appears there. Materialscientist (talk) 00:27, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

TEPCO does not own Onagawa reactors
Dont know what I am doing. But somebody look into this and make changes where necessary. I live in Sendai. At about ref. 192, someone says that TEPCO owns the ONAGAWA reactors. Not so. They are owned by Tohoku Denryoku. Big difference there. I know the IAEA is not too concerned with accuracy in its reports, but it is important becuase ONAGAWA has three reactors, all were safe. All are much closer to Sendai. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.135.8.120 (talk) 06:08, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Thanks for your report. Rmhermen (talk) 16:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Name (again)
NHK World TV, Asahi Shimbun and even the UN OCHA have taken to using the name "Great East Japan earthquake" to describe this event. Just as how the 1995 Kobe earthquake is known as the Great Hanshin earthquake, should we rename the article to the new name? Strange Passerby (talk • contribs • Editor review) 06:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The European Geosciences Union has added a session to its annual assembly in Vienna in April on this earthquake, using the names "Tohoku (Sendai)". I bet "Tohoku" will stick with seismologists, nobody is going to use a cumbersome, ill defined name like "East Japan". I think Wikipedia should stick to "Tohoku".Maxwyss (talk) 07:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss


 * Quake was off Miyagi Prefecture, near Kennasuma
 * Tsunami damaged Tohoku the most
 * Fukushima is the center of the nuke incidents
 * Miyagi and Fukushima are part of Tohoku
 * so... Tohoku seems more appropriate. "East Japan" easily refers to the entire eastern part of Honshu, from the watershed divide on eastwards. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 08:49, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The Japanese government has given the disaster an official name, literally the "Great East (or Eastern) Japan Earthquake Disaster" so we can expect this name to start appearing in the media. I added this name to the first paragraph. Technically the name of the disaster can be different from the name of the earthquake and tsunami, so Tōhoku is probably still fine as the name of the article. AlanSiegrist (talk) 22:50, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

At least 1 Japanese agency is referring to it as the "2011 Tohoku - Pacific Ocean Earthquake" http://www.mlit.go.jp/koku/flyjapan_en —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.50.59.137 (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Split proposal (effects and aftermath)
I suggest the effects and aftermath section of this page be split into its own page. I propose this because of the great length of this page, mostly due to this particular section. Further reason is the unusually complicated and multifaceted aftermath: humanitarian crisis, economic impact, nuclear incidents, etc. --User:WoodElf 04:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support (nearly any split, ASAP), see above. Materialscientist (talk) 05:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - I think this is a great idea, it will help with the edit wars between both pages. RowanQuigley (talk) 05:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Support - Logical in that the events are unlikely to stop cascading. Jus  da  fax   06:02, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Article is too big and takes too long to load. Goodvac (talk) 08:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support makes sense to split the aftermath from the direct action of the quake and tsunami. Though the quake and tsunami themselves can also be split apart. 65.93.12.101 (talk) 21:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment few articles have "aftermath" spin offs, and to give due weight to the consequences (is that the same as "aftermath"?) nearly all the summary would have to be included here - unless all that would remain is a geology article or one that stops time miraculously at when the tsunami recedes at various geographic points (so what happens in Japan at T+7 hrs is "aftermath", while it's not in California), seems a bit odd. I suggest one-liners in the article about the nuclear, etc., issues with a pointer to the in-depth article. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 22:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I don't have a problem with having a single behemoth article on this subject. Cla68 (talk) 01:44, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you tried to save an edit on this article? Materialscientist (talk) 01:46, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Split by placing most of the contents of the 'damage and effects' section into a separate article, as I always suggested above. Hmains (talk) 02:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 *  Support - Article is too large MindStorM (talk) 15:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - Article is becoming unwieldy in length and it makes sense to split it considering the majority of this article is about the thoroughly reported aftermath. Dalyup! (talk) 17:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - Article is well written but too long. The two are definitely linked, but there's a difference between the tsunami and earthquake and the human impact/actions/recovery afterwards. -- Gnowor TC 23:29, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support- I hate long articles. Many readers will load (and spend minutes doing so) this page to learn about either the tsunami and earthquake or their effects. Splitting will make the whole subject easier to research and navigate through. Jsayre64   (talk)  03:21, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - Although that article will probably have to be split up as well. Taemyr (talk) 18:45, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - Seems like a good idea having separate articles, given the time it takes to save an edit with one word change...Trex21 (talk) 04:26, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * comment For all the supporters: what is going to be in the split article? What is going to be the name of the split article?  This is not at all clear from the comments here.  Hmains (talk) 04:32, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I went bold and mechanically split the article into Aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, merely to make the article editable. My idea was to keep geological information here and move humanitarian sections. I shall not complete the split and would appreciate help in tidying the split articles (writing the lead of the new article and summary of the split content in this article). Also, would be nice to move a bit more content, for loading time reasons. Materialscientist (talk) 07:59, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * good work Unfortunately, the article still results in a Wikipedia error screen when you save it. So there is another problem to be fixed besides length. Hmains (talk) 17:39, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've written a one paragraph summary in this article and reused it as the lead of the split article (with addition of link back to main article), I tried to keep it really short (I hate it when the synopsis ends up nearly as big as the side article!) and simply drawn out one or two key points from each section (except the sport section which didn't seem very important compared to the rest). I worked the section headings into the text too to serve as pointers. Samatarou (talk) 00:42, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Support article is way too long and takes long to load even on my fast computer. ''' Jessy  ( talk ) ( contribs ) • 17:42, April 3, 2011 (UTC)

Change the name?
As noted on the header of the main article, the Japanese government officially renamed the disaster as Higashi Nihon Dai Shinsai (東日本大震災) (Shinsai (震災) can be translated as "disaster of an earthquake"). According to the Talk page of Japanese Wikipedia article, editors are currently trying to leave the name of main article as is, while changing the names of sub-articles describing damages, aids from other countries, related crimes, etc., to the new one. I would like to ask if the name of the English Wiki article should be changed or not.--WCIDFS (talk) 06:15, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Here we use WP:COMMONNAME: "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it instead uses the name which is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources." --Kslotte (talk) 16:46, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, some user has moved this article to 2011 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake Disaster through a 3rd name, and, in restoring the article integrity, I have kept the move. Please comment if the name should be changed - I have move-protected the article, and thus name corrections can be (un)done by admins only. Sorry for this confusion. Materialscientist (talk) 01:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Go back to the last name, and if the user wants to change the name, let them begin an WP:RM, like they are suppose to do.-- JOJ Hutton  03:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Lets wait a bit for comments. Meanwhile, the lead needs to be brushed up and reflect the recent name change by the Japan Government. I've quick added an NHK ref, but in the long term, a more stable ref. would be needed. Materialscientist (talk) 03:07, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * At first glance, this seems a spectacularly poor choice of title. I very much doubt that any English speaker would look for it under this name, and it raises the obvious question as to whether it is possible to have a 'great earthquake' without it being a 'disaster'. Personally, I think there is a good case for automatic move-protection for active 'in-the-news' articles simply because well-meaning but uninformed edits can cause so much unnecessary work. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:26, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Could we please return this to the name chosen in the naming debate - now mostly in archive 3. (and a fresher link for one of the key points there: ) Rmhermen (talk) 03:54, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * May I request the comments to be crystal clear on names and links. I guess you mean returning to the pre-move name, 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Materialscientist (talk) 04:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

What the heck. Please return to the pre-move name. This name is horrible and there was no WP:RM initiated. SnowFire (talk) 04:35, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Restored. Materialscientist (talk) 04:43, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The bolded name of the article in the first paragraph now doesn't match the article's title... Prioryman (talk) 07:51, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed. I only changed the English name, however; I left the "new" Japanese name since (I believe) that's still supported by the sources.  Orange Suede Sofa  (talk) 08:16, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I fixed the one in the infobox. Goodvac (talk) 08:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * just because the Japanese Govt. can't make their mind up about the name doens't mean we have to keep renaming the article too, especially as there are lots of category names and references that would need updating to match. I notice that the japanese wikipedia article still uses the name Tohoku. Samatarou (talk) 22:36, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

GAN
Why don't more of these very thourough and comprehensive current events artic least "good articles?" I am going to nominate it now that it has settled down. Daniel Christensen (talk) 19:46, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a lot of WP:MOS work getting an article like this ready. Although the article contains a lot of good information, many of the references aren't formatted correctly, information is sometimes repeated in different parts of the article, there are grammatical and logical flow problems, and some of the images may have incomplete sourcing and licensing information. Cla68 (talk) 05:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Maximum tsunami height: 37.9 metres
Hi. Can we add this report stating the highest tsunami height in Tarō, Iwate? The highest tsunami ever recorded in Japan was 38.2 m, in Ofunato during the 1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake. However, there is some discrepancy in the article as it claims that the new height is somehow higher than the previous record. Thanks. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 20:03, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've added it. Prioryman (talk) 20:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Isn't a tsunami that is 124 feet tall a mega tsunami?--Matthurricane (talk) 23:38, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

The incoming wave wasn't that high, rather it swept 37.9 metres up the hillside (according to a Channel 4 documentary the tsunami itself was 10 metres high at Miyako, and only cleared the sea wall because the land had dropped by a metre). Samatarou (talk) 04:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Page looks different when redirected?
When going directly to the page, the third paragraph begins "The Japanese National Police Agency has officially confirmed 12,259 deaths,[4][5] 2,858 injured,[4][5] and 15,315 people missing[4][5] across eighteen prefectures", but when redirected to the page via the search "Japanese tsunami 2011", the paragraph begins with "The Japanese National Police Agency has officially confirmed many thousands of human beings were disassembled". This seems like a problem, but I don't understand why it happens. 65.211.178.123 (talk) 14:54, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks normal now, no idea why. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tsunami_2011 65.211.178.123 (talk) 19:20, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Just the work of a particularly obsessive (and clearly deranged) vandal. Rapidly reverted. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

DNFTT
There were several experiments being conducted concerning HAARP in the area affected by the Earthquake and Tsunami. Fact. Why is it being censored here? I'll provide links soon. 134.74.154.74 (talk) 19:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I dunno, because HAARP is a whackjob conspiracy theory? Just a thought... Prioryman (talk) 19:04, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * A fact??? You are joking, right? Can you give one reliable source, supporting this foolish bullshit for conspiracy dumbasses? Particulary: 1. What kind of experiments, where and at which time were being conducted, 2. Any physically plausible mechanism of their would-be relationship with this (or any other) disaster? --Teslaton (talk) 19:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Ignore this question - the IP is none other than the 'disassembly' vandal, since blocked. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Category:Cities and towns destroyed by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
I think this category name is somewhat problematic as few towns have been completely and utterly destroyed and I feel this is starting to cause some contention, I suggest "devastated" would be a better word than "destroyed", since it allows for the fact that there may be some houses etc left standing, e.g. the outskirts of some towns are often still there even if the main part of a town has been destroyed. Samatarou (talk) 01:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a logical idea. Would you mind listing that at Categories for discussion? Goodvac (talk) 01:29, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and listed it at Categories for discussion/Log/2011 March 28 per your rationale. Goodvac (talk) 01:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I am placing a link to this category (for now) in the See Also section, although there should really also be a Wikipedia List-Page--

(Such as "List of Cities and Towns Severely Damaged by the 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami). Hopefully if that list is eventually created, the See Also link can then be switched to that.

In addition there should be a Second list-page--

"Cities and towns evacuated during the 2011 Japanese Nuclear Crisis", this should also have a sub-list of cities and towns under long-term/permanent evacuation (the Japanse government has just announced that a few nearby towns are now under such an order).

173.246.35.178 (talk) 19:49, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I've created List of cities and towns severely damaged by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Feel free to update it ad add information to it. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿  · Talk to Nihonjoe ·  Join WikiProject Japan ! 20:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks to the person who worked so hard to assemble this list!

Telemachus.forward (talk) 11:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)