mother nature is out to get us but some buildings will survive
holy shit, japan. O.O if any of you guys have friends or family there or in hawaii (or anywhere in the pacific, actually), i hope they're ok. i've been resolutely not looking for pictures or video of the disaster, but this clip of swaying buildings in tokyo is actually kind of cool. (if kind of scary....) they sway so they don't fall down. granted, tokyo wasn't the epicenter and the city didn't flood, but still, imagine if all those skyscrapers hadn't been designed and built with earthquakes in mind.
(in 1923, shortly after frank lloyd wright's imperial hotel opened, there was a massive earthquake in tokyo and a lot of the city collapsed and caught fire. the hotel didn't, because wright was smart and designed it for just such an occasion. also, it was built of stone and concrete and not wood. it sustained some damage, but was in good enough shape that the us embassy relocated there because the embassy building had been destroyed.)
apparently the hancock tower in boston sways an average of eighteen feet each day. yowza. but it was designed to do that.
reuters has live news updates of the quake and tsunami. not too many pictures, mostly text updates.
(in 1923, shortly after frank lloyd wright's imperial hotel opened, there was a massive earthquake in tokyo and a lot of the city collapsed and caught fire. the hotel didn't, because wright was smart and designed it for just such an occasion. also, it was built of stone and concrete and not wood. it sustained some damage, but was in good enough shape that the us embassy relocated there because the embassy building had been destroyed.)
apparently the hancock tower in boston sways an average of eighteen feet each day. yowza. but it was designed to do that.
reuters has live news updates of the quake and tsunami. not too many pictures, mostly text updates.