>>>Looks like it could be a big one on all the pacific coastlines
>>>
>>>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598
>>
>>This is a really bad one. The quake was bad enough, then add tsunami waves 10 meters high.
>>
>>I learned something I didn't know driving Emily to school a few minutes ago. She said what is the highest earthquake magnitude? I told her to look up Richter scale on her iPhone. She said the site she looked at says there is no upper end. What kind of scale is that?
>
>It's not a scale like the ones used for hurricanes or tornados. It's an actual measure of the movement, and it's called a "scale" because it's logarithmic, not straight line.
>
>What's the upper end of the weight range of humans? There's a largest recorded weight, but no theoretical top.
>

I'm sure you're right that there is no specific top weight. I doubt there will ever be a human who weighs 50,000 pounds, though.

Thanks for the point about it being a log scale. I did not know that.

My impulse is to get over there and help out, which is unfortunately not possible. I don't have a valid passport and don't know if they are even looking for foreign rescue workers given the chaos. Helping out after Katrina was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, even though parts of it were pretty grim. It reaffirmed something I have always believed: there is a lot of crap in the world but when help is really needed, people come through. One morning a group of us were at a warehouse in Houston sorting through donations that had come in from all over the country. Little kids had sent in their stuffed animals or their allowance, a few one dollar bills. Clothes of every description. There was a long line of displaced people from the Gulf Coast lined up outside who were given an allotment of clothing and food. It didn't pay a thing, in fact I had to take a week of vacation to do it and pay my expenses out of pocket, but actually it paid a lot.

I guess we should be thankful for small blessings. If the epicenter had been under Tokyo instead of 300 miles out in the ocean there would have been devastation on an unimaginable scale.