As you’ve probably heard by now, Japan experienced a massive magnitude 8.9 earthquake a few hours ago, which has led to tsunami warnings and watches for the west coasts of North, Central and South America and the Hawaiian islands. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre is an excellent source of information about this. You can read the bulletin issued at 1431Z here.

Japan is unfortunately well-versed in dealing with massive earthquakes. Prior to this morning’s quake, the Kobe earthquake in January 1995 was the biggest one to hit in recent history, with a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter scale. It resulted in more than 6,400 deaths and cost about ten trillion yen in damage, which was about 2.5% of Japan’s GDP at the time, or just over $100 billion US dollars.

This morning’s quake was about 100 times as powerful as the Kobe quake. And I just saw on Twitter that Japan was just hit by a 7m (23′) tsunami. The extent of the damage is staggering.

Google’s Person Finder service is up and running at http://japan.person-finder.appspot.com. Family members of Canadians in Japan can call DFAIT at 613-943-1055, or toll free within Canada at 1-800-387-3124, or visit http://www.voyage.gc.ca/contact/menu-eng.asp.