missing, how many dead. another problem is trying to reach anyone. virtually all the mobile lines are down. as far as, i should say, they re jammed. everyone is trying to use their mobile phone or cell phone. so land lines are extraordinarily difficult to get through. here in the bureau we have a number of land lines out. this is one of the only ones that s working. so it is a struggle trying to reach those people, trying to get in touch with those people. and a lot of those people up north have relatives down here in tokyo, and you can see that that s a bit of the panic, that you can t reach your loved ones and you just don t know what s happening up there. so you re really illustrating how there are sort of two crises. the situation in tokyo, as you said, where the earthquake hit. we re looking at a refinery on fire as well. these are just extraordinary pictures. and further north in those farmlands, the flooding because of the tsunami. how equipped are they in japan to deal with w
just 15 seconds late, there s something wrong. that usually tells people that there s something wrong. so to have an entire train line in one of the most connected cities in the world completely shut down, that is highly unusual, and that raises concern for people. so in the streets of tokyo, people are on foot. they re trying to get home. but many people, just like new york city, have to commute a great distance, and it is very difficult to get home tonight because all the taxis are taken. there are no train lines. and as far as what we can tell, it is just very, very difficult to get around. so a lot of people walking around trying to figure out what they re going to do. that s the crisis in tokyo. and so the prime minister has urged people to remain calm and just move about your business as best as you can given the situation. the crisis up north is a different magnitude. because of what we ve seen, the tsunami, the massive debris moving across that region, that is a search and resc
japanese government, assessing what the government might need, and then trying to help out where appropriate and where requested. obviously, japan is used to earthquakes. they are probably the best prepared country in the entire world for earthquakes. that said, this is a huge one, so there may be other things the japanese could call on the united states to do. the u.s. and japan, of course, are major partners. i did check with the website. we tried to get through, in fact, to the embassy in tokyo with no success directly. but on their website, they do say they are going to be closed for the rest of this business day because of the earthquake. they say for any information on the welfare and the whereabouts of family and friends in japan, people should contact the state department website, that is state.gov, for contact information. and american citizens that are living in japan and there are
workers, and people who are just downtown are basically trapped there for the night right now. matt, does it necessarily look like a lot of destruction? i know people got shaken up pretty well and some of the train lines and things you described. does it look like a lot of structural damage, the infrastructure with a lot of damage, buildings damaged? tokyo is actually it s a very technological city, and they have a lot of technology in place for dealing with earthquakes. some of those things are massive waterways and sluices that are used to divert the waters when they hit the city. other things are shutting down elevators or evacuating buildings, and structures built into buildings to prevent them from falling in the case of a tremor. all of that seems to work pretty much according to plan, and the city, tokyo, is actually in pretty good shape. there are sporadic reports of fires and damage here. but most of the damage is in northern japan iwati prefecture,
we appreciate the update from you. live picture we re looking at here at some of the chaos happening there, like he was mentioning. people are just trapped right now. they can t get anywhere. a lot of the train systems are shut down. but, again, he said the city itself is in pretty good shape. again, a live picture we re looking at here. for our viewers, we re at the bottom of the hour here. got an early start on this american morning, but the story this morning is an 8.9 magnitude quake hitting off the coast of japan, shaking throughout the country, felt as far away as tokyo, some 230 miles away. now the danger is tsunami. tsunamis, waves of water starting to sweep through parts of that country and taking everything with it. you re seeing some of the pictures here. when an earthquake shakes the water like that, shakes on the sea floor, it s kind of like you re throwing a rock, a pebble into the water there, and it sends out a ripple effect. so these waves are shooted out