The GHZ Forum

TOKYO – Japan was struck by a magnitude-8.8 earthquake off its northeastern coast Friday, triggering a 13-foot (4-meter) tsunami that washed away cars and tore away buildings along the coast near the epicenter.

In various locations along Japan's coast, TV footage showed severe flooding, with dozens of cars, boats and even buildings being carried along by waters. A large ship swept away by the tsunami rammed directly into a breakwater in Kesennuma city in Miyagi prefecture, according to footage on public broadcaster NHK.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110311/ap_ ... earthquake

..I hope GG!'s okay.

I just switched on Al Jazeera and saw massive floods in the exact prefecture he's apparently staying in. Yeah, definitely hope he's OK.

He's dead. He's totally dead. You see those pictures? He's a goner. How fitting that the last thread he made was about that which he loved best: Critiquing children's cereal.


Ain't no sunshine when he's gone.

(Seriously though, I'm really worried!)

GG! lives in Iwate I think? If someone knows his real name, try the Person Finder.

Registered to let you all know...

According to the Sonic Retro wiki, Green Gibbon!'s name is Jared Matte. I couldn't find any info about him on Google Person Finder, but I did set up an entry.

Jesus fucking Christ, that looks really horrible! I hope he turns out safe in the next couple of days, next year's cocoa harvest is supposed to be much greater and I'd be a shame for him to miss it.

Cockiness aside, I'm really worried about the guy. Especially after seeing those photos.

Thank God we have the Sonic Retro wiki to verify the information we have on his very own website.

Green Gibbon! has a website?

Green Gibbon! has a wiki entry?

What's fantastic is that my dad flew in to visit family near Osaka this week! He's fine, apparently -- as you can see, the quakes and waters don't seem to be reaching that far southwest. This was a pretty fucking scary morning, though, until his call made it to us through the congested phone lines.

If it's any reassurance, I'm pretty sure Japan is well prepared for natural disasters, being super-rich and having dealt with them throughout history. The death toll is, supposedly, between 60 and 300, which, while tragic, is microscopic compared to what it could be. Nevertheless, I hope GG's okay.

Segaholic2 wrote:Thank God we have the Sonic Retro wiki to verify the information we have on his very own website.

Fucking seriously.

It's entirely possible he was evacuated, so we'll just have to wait.

Shit man, that's legitimately terrifying. Give us a call, JM.

Senbei wrote:If it's any reassurance, I'm pretty sure Japan is well prepared for natural disasters, being super-rich and having dealt with them throughout history. The death toll is, supposedly, between 60 and 300, which, while tragic, is microscopic compared to what it could be. Nevertheless, I hope GG's okay.

To the best of my knowledge, I think all their earthquake preparedness is the only reason this didn't turn out worse than it did--though I doubt anyone anywhere expected a near-magnitude-9 quake.

And yeah, hopefully GG! got through this unscathed.

Oh, man! I spent a good chunk of time this morning wondering about people I had lost contact with over there a long time ago, completely taking for granted the guy who hosts the message board that I visit every freaking day. I hope he's ok!

This is the first thing I thought about when I heard the news while at work. I really hope GG!'s okay.

A local news radio station got in contact with a Spanish journalist in Tokyo, he said every single multi-storey building there was still standing. Hope he was at a high place and/or far enough from the coastline.

Crisis wrote:

GG! lives in Iwate I think?

Yeah, Jared is in Iwate unless he stealthily moved somewhere else in the past few months without saying anything. It seems that area got hit worse than anywhere else in the country.

Isuka wrote:This is the first thing I thought about when I heard the news while at work.

Same here. I'm confident GG is fine, though. He did escape from a mutant bee once!

Yeah, GG, along with another member of a fan obsession site, were on my mind when I heard. I hope everything is ok on his end.

Oh shit. Completely forgot he was there. Hope all is as well is it can be in these situations.

He’s played Sonic Adventure and fought Chaos, so I’m sure he’ll know how to handle monstrous tsunamis. (No, seriously; if he lives that close to the epicentre of the catastrophe I’m rather concerned as well.)

That said, while this earthquake was the 5th worst since 1900, I’m a little irked by the (usual) selectiveness of the media. Japan’s plight is all over the place and covered extensively across all media, all day, but when tsunamis of equally disastrous proportioned devastated large swaths of Southeastern Asia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, etc., and killed hundreds, it just appeared in the news a few times and that was it. Despite the countries that were hit there having been much less prepared than Japan which is used to earthquakes and has the money and technology to prepare itself—“just” a few hundred people having died so far is almost a miracle considering the dimensions of the disaster and the population density of the region where it hit hardest—, and the losses not being as easily recoverable. The countries were poor and had bad infrastructure, rescue work was slow and inefficient, and I’m sure many of the people hit by the waves are still homeless today or have yet to glue back together their meagre existences. In Japan on the other hand, reconstruction will be rapid and everyone will be provided for, so the overall effect will not be as severe.

I’m rather worried about that nuclear reactor though. While I initially thought of Godzilla, I then realised that this is almost the same scenario as that in the first few episodes of Earth Maiden Arjuna.

Since I don't know anyone else in Japan, I guess he's really the one I'm more concerned about. But yeah, he was probably smart enough to get somewhere safe.

And yes, the nuclear reactor thing is pretty dangerous - I hope there weren't any leaks.

Brazillian Cara wrote: And yes, the nuclear reactor thing is pretty dangerous - I hope there weren't any leaks.

One is leaking and another's core is over heating due to a blackout - no water pumps to keep the water flowing. They have purposely vented radiation from the hot core to bring down temperatures to buy some time to get the pumps running.

I got in touch with GG!'s mother (don't ask how). As of right now she hasn't heard from him either, as all cell phone service is down. She said that she's growing more concerned as she saw some violent footage from a city in his prefecture.

Personally, I wouldn't stress until the power comes back on in his area.

Spazz wrote:I got in touch with GG!'s mother (don't ask how). As of right now she hasn't heard from him either, as all cell phone service is down. She said that she's growing more concerned as she saw some violent footage from a city in his prefecture.

..Shit. Please be okay, Gibs.

On a much less important (and somewhat selfish) note, I hope Yu Suzuki is okay too. I want to play Shenmue 3 one day. He can't leave us with this.

Spazz wrote:(don't ask how)

oh my god did you use a telephone

I was hoping he'd been able to contact his family and just wasn't able to get online. I can't imagine what she's going through.

Spazz wrote: Personally, I wouldn't stress until the power comes back on in his area.

That could be a long time. We'd probably hear from him before then. I'm sure he'll contact his mother as soon as he can find an available phone.