Japan

Shocked by this terrible tragedy of the earthquake (now upgraded to 9.0) and tsunami - a real one-two punch as one commentator said. Of course it is not geologically surprising, and in fact was predicted due to recent activity in the tectonic plates in the region. I am sure you have seen plenty of amazing footage of the disaster on TV or on the internet, so I won't add to your tragedy overload with more videos or images.

We can only hope that many of the 10,000 missing are found alive.

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Also it would disastrous if any of the nuclear power stations at risk go into meltdown! That would be a three-punch beyond belief! We don't need any more Chernobyls!

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The Japanese company I work for, which has offices in Ome, Mitaka and Nagano, has suffered no damage and no-one has been injured according to reports from our bosses.

Part of our company also makes radiation dosage and monitoring equipment, so some of those Geiger-counter type things you are seeing on the news could be ours (not that this is important in the scheme of things, just thought I'd mention it).

E@L