Tsunami, Natural Disaster | featured news

Stocks plunged Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down almost 300 points at the opening, as the nuclear crisis in Japan intensified following a deadly earthquake and tsunami....

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake shook eastern Japan on Tuesday, one of the most powerful aftershocks to hit the country since Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami which killed at least 10,000 people, public broadcaster NHK said.

These aerial photos show locations in Japan before and after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that struck on Friday, March 11.

A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline, crematoriums were overwhelmed and rescue workers ran out of body bags as the nation faced the grim reality of its mounting humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis Monday after a calamitous tsunami....

Last week's earthquake in Japan could lead to insured losses of nearly $35 billion, risk modeling company AIR Worldwide said, making it one of the most expensive catastrophes in history.

The massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that shook Japan and triggered a powerful tsunami on Friday has had a profound effect on both the surrounding terrain and the planet as a whole. Dr. Daniel McNamara, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told The Huffington Post that the disaster left a gigantic rupture in the sea floor, 217-miles long and 50 miles wide.

The last-ditch move indicates that the backup cooling system in a second quake-damaged reactor has failed. Japanese officials say radiation levels at another reactor being pumped with seawater have fallen, but hydrogen gas is building in a third.

Fifteen members of China’s International search and Rescue Team took off for Japan Sunday morning to help its neighbor clean up from one of its biggest natural disasters in a generation, the Xinhua news agency reports.

Google on Saturday released its first satellite images of Japan since the devastation that followed a massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit the island nation Friday afternoon local time.

The tsunami warnings have been lifted, and California coastal communities damaged by Friday's waves were assessing the damage to harbors and boats this morning.