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People will be fine there, it will take a few days but they will get things back to normal for those people who are mobile. They will have issues for a few days, but things will clear up pretty quickly. For those trapped and/or hurt, it could take awhile for them to get help.

The unique thing about Japan is the population densities. It would be like having an earthquake up and down both sides of the US, with tsunami's hitting on both coasts to basically have the same kind of effected population.

^ actually the recent quake is pretty identical to a big one going off in Monterey Bay (if such subduction faults existed there)

You could imagine the 101 corridor from Salinas to San Jose (same population as Sendai) losing power and all the coastal communities from Santa Cruz to Pacific Grove getting washed into the sea. Throw in some valley farmland and it's a closer match.

Only 4 deaths in Tokyo so far is a pretty damn good survival, given this quake was almost as bad in Tokyo as our 1989 quake.

But it's going to take a lot of time and investment to replace the hundreds of billions of dollars of economic loss to the Tohoku seaboard. Maybe a hundred thousand people have lost everything in this world, and they're going to be need to be recapitalized to get back into the primary sector of the economy, and meanwhile the secondary sector that served the ag and fishery industry is going to get similarly wiped out.

And this is not getting into the issues with the crippled nuke plant spewing radioactivity right now. Tohoku may only be a small part of the Japanese economy but this 2% or so just got kicked in the nuts.

@Troy

Where did you get the 2%? Not saying you are wrong, just curious.

I have enough stocked (especially water for now).

It's now been a few days, I wouldn't say things are back to normal.

People will be fine there, it will take a few days but they will get things back to normal for those people who are mobile. They will have issues for a few days, but things will clear up pretty quickly.

The situation at the power plants is a ticking bomb

The danger of nuclear power plants is all hyped up. We have a serious group in our county attempting to create an energy park including nuclear power. That would be awesome and an economic boon.

So are potatoes more or less likely than other foodstuffs to accumulate radionuclides?

American in Japan says

Where did you get the 2%? Not saying you are wrong, just curious.

Tohoku has 7% of GDP, so the coastal fishing industry is one fourth of that?

Plus Sendai serves as a regional center supporting the Tohoku coast, too, so lost GDP from fishing will bleed back to Tohoku.

Then again, if Japan can't get its energy situation sorted out by summer, it will be losing more than 2% of GDP just from the blackouts. Imagine trying to run a conbini when a third of your goods go bad every day. Plus all the transit mayhem.