have now raised the magnitude of friday's earthquake to 9.0. that is still the strongest on record to ever hit japan. and the size and scope of the quake has raised a lot of questions about how much advance notice can be given before such a catastrophic event. for more, i'm joined live by thomas o'rourke, professor of civil and environmental engineering at cornell university. he is also on the advisory committee for earthquake hazard reduction. so, thomas, we're going to be showing -- thank you, by the way, for being here -- and as we speak -- >> good morning, alex. >> -- we're going to run the amateur video just in to nbc. this is remarkable. about three minutes of it, in fact, as the tsunami was striking. can you get a heads-up with regard to the earthquake that causes this tsunami? we hear reports of people in tokyo having been given as much as two minutes warning. any chance we're going to develop the ability to do it even further in advance of that? >> well, there's two issues. there is long-term warning and then there is short-term