Strong earthquake hits northern Japan, tsunami warning issued
73 comments
·December 8, 2025qwertox
Today I got served this video "Earthquake and Liquefaction his Urayasu, Chiba 3/11/2011" [0], which is from the earthquake which caused the huge tsunami in Japan.
I have rarely seen something as scary as this.
pengaru
The flood videos of towns, cars, and people being violently washed away are way scarier IMO.
Urayasu looks built on the water and all I see in the linked video is a threshold condition where the water is just barely peeking up through the ground below. People are still walking around, cars driving. There are far more chaotic and destructive scenes on youtube from that tsunami.
qwertox
I remember it, as it was unfolding live on tv. I've never seen anything as brutal as that tsunami, in terms of a natural catastrophe.
intunderflow
Was in a hotel in Sapporo, almost got thrown out of bed. Lot of people in the hotel lobby now.
Considering leaving Hokkaido by air if a Hokkaido and Sanriku Subsequent Earthquake Advisory is issued, don't really want to be in a potential megaquake.
akg_67
Good luck, the Sapporo Chitose airport is closed for inspection of both runways.
BTW, you are safer in hotel than outside. No need to stay in lobby, go to bed, just protect your head. I experienced much bigger one in Sapporo in 2018.
linenmerchant
Best of luck!
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uyzstvqs
Official map with wave observations: https://www.jma.go.jp/bosai/map.html#5/33.909/141.192/&conte...
0.7m observed about 40 minutes ago.
kachapopopow
When I was in japan the earthquakes were oddly exciting rather than scary, had three different ones while I was there that visibly shook rather heavy objects around. Two being in a building and one outside.
It was rather interesting seeing things shift around leaving a permanent imprint that there was in-fact an earthquake and it wasn't some kind of illusion when earthquakes these size couple of decades ago would cause non zero amount of damage.
Although, I am scared for tokyo about the predicted earthquake that would push all these systems near the breaking point and even beyond it, but hopefully the past in not prediction of the feature and instead it'll just be a lot of smaller earthquakes.
jacquesm
Funny, I had the exact opposite reaction. Things I had taken for granted all my life suddenly became un-anchored and as a result so did I. I have never felt an actual feeling of panic that threatened to overwhelm me before that happened and it was a very mild earthquake. I had to really force myself to calm down and stay rational and do what was the safest rather than to give in to the 'flee' reflex.
The problem with earthquakes is when they start you know you're in one but you have no idea where you're headed, whether this is as bad as it gets or whether you're going to end up in a pile of collapsed rubble and what is the best decision greatly hinges on something you can't know ahead of time, which is the peak magnitude and the kind of earthquake you are experiencing.
rdtsc
> Things I had taken for granted all my life suddenly became un-anchored and as a result so did I.
Same for me. If you don’t grow up with a number of small regular quakes or live in high-rise building that sways with the wind, it’s pretty unsettling to feel, what you always know as stable hard ground, solid buildings all of the sudden bouncing around. Rationally you know what it is and how it works but it’s still scary.
throwawaylaptop
99% of your problem can be solved by studying statistics for your area, and having a plan... So that you aren't just at the whims of the moment when it's actually happening.
mikestorrent
What kinds of statistics is it that one should study?
Having a bugout bag and emergency supplies and water on hand is a reasonable idea everyone with the means ought to do; it's a good thing to not have to depend on gov't intervention (not because of a lack of trust, but because the general public will, and the potential for mob situations is high).
But what should I have read about to know what to do? Topological maps and flood planes?
kachapopopow
I always was in one of the major cities so I had full confidence in them. Lacking the natural fear of death probably has something to do with it as well.
embedding-shape
What seems to matter greatly how affect someone is by an earthquake, seems to also be related to how used people are to being unbalanced. I was once with a group of friends who most of them were skaters and snowboarders, so used to thinking about balance and being in situations where they can't do much about it, standing on relatively unbalanced things. During the earthquake, similarly to parent, most of them were fascinated, while the non-skaters quickly panicked and threw themselves on the ground.
Of course, just an anecdote, and those people could also have a general lack of fear of death, but the difference between the two of you made me think of the event again.
null
throwup238
This would be the tenth major earthquake (7+ magnitude) along the Pacific ring of fire this year.
With the Kamchatka and other earthquakes in the news recently I had a fear that were building to some major event but turns out that this year is about average if not slightly below average for major quakes along the ring of fire.
almosthere
It's probably related to a phenomenon we're not yet aware of.
markus_zhang
I heard that smaller (relative) earthquakes actually lower the prob of larger ones, so maybe it is a good thing? A bunch of 7.X earthquakes in the ocean are not going to be hugely destructive.
lostlogin
> A bunch of 7.X earthquakes in the ocean are not going to be hugely destructive.
New Zealand’s 5th most deadly disaster was Christchurch’s 6.2 which killed 185 people. It was a shallow aftershock from a larger, less destructive quake.
The damage was huge.
y1n0
The key phrase in the parent is “in the ocean”
jacquesm
That's correct, if relatively small earthquakes would stop that could be the precursor to a much bigger one. It's like releasing tension gradually rather than all at once.
tonmoy
Isn’t that a myth? Do you have any sources to back up your claim?
jansan
That is correct, but OTOH there was a 7.3 foreshock two days before the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake.
So the only thing we can say for sure is that it is still extremely difficult to predict earthquakes.
null
tetris11
NHK (english): https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20251209_02/
> The Japanese government set up a task force at the crisis management center in the prime minister's office at 11:16 p.m. on Monday in response to the earthquake.
A thousand Naruto shadow-clones just got deployed. I'm not being cute, these guys are heroes and role-models to all.
dang
(Thanks for the link - we've since merged the threads to a submission of that one. I've included the other major links that people have been posting in the toptext.)
stackghost
What's a Naruto shadow clone? Google hits are just about a kids show.
phantasmish
I’m imagining the folks from Shin Godzilla.
I assume that movie is for Japanese civil servants like the show Silicon Valley is for programmers. Stuff like the repeated meeting-room changes for no apparent reason reads as too specific and weird to be made-up.
lagniappe
Somewhat offtopic curiosity: Is there anything that Japanese fishkeepers do to keep the water and livestock inside the tank during earthquakes? Here we have no such risk for earthquakes, so a 600lb tank of water 4ft off the ground isn't much of an issue, even when bumped. I'd imagine earthquakes of this frequency could complicate that.
octaane
https://www.tsunami.gov/?p=PHEB/2025/12/08/25342050/2/WEPA40
Shouldn't be too bad; USGS forecasts up to 1 meter tsunami.
e12e
Nhk has some more information - looks like the areas hardest hit will have been hit by now, with 3m high waves:
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/weather-disaster/tsu...
Kye
1 meter is bad. That's a lot of water full of things you don't want slamming into you or any structure. Then it comes back full of even worse things.
belorn
Is 1 meter bad? In context it seems to be missing what kind of waves normally hit the coast line, and what kind tide differences exist, and what the current water level is when the wave hit.
What is a typical maximum wave height during hurricane seasons in north of japan?
linhns
Epicentre very deep underground, so shouldn’t be dangerous aside from small tsunamis.
onceiwasthere
Your comment prompted me to go read about epicenters and I learned something new. The hypocenter of an earthquake is apparently the point of origin of the earthquake and the epicenter is the point on the earth's surface directly above the hypocenter. Had never heard of a hypocenter before.
rpozarickij
I didn't know about hypocenter before too but it's neat how you can sometimes deduce the meaning of a word from its parts (because "hypo" means "under"/"below" in Greek, like in hypodermic, hypoglycaemia, etc).
macintux
The class wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped, in part because it seemed to attract older kids hoping for an easy grade, but in my high school we had an etymology class.
(My school also offered Latin, but etymology seemed a much more direct/easier way to get the same basics. I just wish someone had taught me about demographics so I would have taken Spanish instead of German.)
nonethewiser
Gojira kimasu.
netcraft
dang
(originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46193413 but we've merged the threads)
mceachen
In case the site gets hugged to death:
https://www.tsunami.gov/events/PAAQ/2025/12/08/t6yfla/1/WEAK...
WEAK53 PAAQ 081430 TIBAK1
Tsunami Information Statement Number 1
NWS National Tsunami Warning Center Palmer AK
630 AM PST Mon Dec 8 2025
...THIS IS A TSUNAMI INFORMATION STATEMENT FOR ALASKA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, WASHINGTON, OREGON AND CALIFORNIA...
EVALUATION
----------
* There is no tsunami danger for the U.S. West Coast, British Columbia, or Alaska.
* Based on earthquake information and historic tsunami records, the earthquake is not expected to generate a tsunami.
* An earthquake has occurred with parameters listed below.
PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE PARAMETERS
---------------------------------
* The following parameters are based on a rapid preliminary assessment of the earthquake and changes may occur.
* Magnitude 7.6
* Origin Time 0515 AKST Dec 08 2025 0615 PST Dec 08 2025 1415 UTC Dec 08 2025
* Coordinates 41.0 North 142.3 East
* Depth 32 miles
* Location in the Hokkaido, Japan region
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND NEXT UPDATE
--------------------------------------
* Refer to the internet site tsunami.gov for more information.
* Pacific coastal regions outside California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska should refer to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center messages at tsunami.gov.
* This will be the only U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center message issued for this event unless additional information becomes available.
$$
dang
(originally posted to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46193413 but we've merged the threads)
ZebusJesus
To think that these are happening more and more around the world and the USA just lost 9 detection stations near Alaska because of NOAA budget cuts. There was also the giant tsunami in the middle of nowhere this year.
https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2025/11/01/state-seismolog...
https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/quake_detail.html?eve...
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/weather-disaster/tsu...
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?currentFeatureI...
https://www.tsunami.gov/?p=PHEB/2025/12/08/25342050/2/WEPA40