Japan Earthquake/Pacific Tsuna­mi Update 1
More infor­ma­tion has become avail­able about the effects and response to the earth­quake which struck off the coast of Hon­shu Japan around 05:46UTC Fri­day 11th March caus­ing exten­sive dam­age to the coun­try and also trig­ger­ing Tsuna­mi waves and warn­ings across the Pacific.
Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­mit­tee Chair­man relayed the following,
From the JARL build­ing head­quar­ters the new­ly appoint­ed sec­re­tary Ken Yamamo­to, JA1CJP, reports that the build­ing shook quite strong­ly, but no seri­ous dam­age was caused.
“With regard to Ama­teur Radio activ­i­ty in the affect­ed areas, we are not aware of any so far,” he said.
“It seems that the com­mu­ni­ca­tions infra­struc­ture has sur­vived the quake and is in work­ing order in regard to pri­or­i­ty communications.”
There are broad­cast media reports that cell­phone and land­line tele­phone ser­vices are dis­rupt­ed and there are wide area pow­er out­ages but the emer­gency ser­vices are work­ing well.
Icko Suzu­ki JA1BPA, of Tokyo, told the ARRL that in Japan, emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions activ­i­ties and sup­port nor­mal­ly occur on 40 meters and on VHF, “so nor­mal DX bands should not be affected.”
As well as the IARU Region 3 Emer­gency CoA fre­quen­cies, the ARRL report that Ama­teur Radio oper­a­tors from Japan may also use 7.130, 14.230 and 21.230 MHz for emer­gency communications.
The tsuna­mi waves are still prop­a­gat­ing across the Pacif­ic ocean with vari­able effects, some coun­tries are spared while oth­ers are observ­ing sig­nif­i­cant waves and some prop­er­ty damage.
In North Amer­i­ca, some parts of Cal­i­for­nia observed waves of up to 1–2m while oth­er areas had less than 1m waves. In the USA the only nets known to be oper­at­ing at the moment are the Ore­gon ARES®/RACES net on 3.964 MHz and SATERN on 14.265 MHz.
The waves should reach Peru around 0251UTC 12th March but the con­tin­u­ing after­shocks in the area of Japan leave the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fur­ther tsuna­mi warn­ings being issued.
Oth­er than the nets men­tioned, there does not seem to be any wide area emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tions by ama­teur radio but it would still be appre­ci­at­ed if extra care was tak­en to avoid any emer­gency traf­fic until the sit­u­a­tion becomes clearer.
— Jim Lin­ton, VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.