How to Follow the Japanese Earthquake on the Web

A guide to news and information resources from across the Internet that will help you stay on top of this developing story.

A massive 8.9 earthquake struck about 80 miles off the coast of Japan, wreaking havoc on one of the world's most disaster-prepared countries and generating a devastating tsunami.

As in recent natural disasters, traditional news organizations, one-off sites, and Internet crisis agencies have swung into action. This is your guide for where to find information and resources about the 10th-largest quake since 1900.

News Resources

AP summary
BBC liveblog
Live streaming translation of Japanese news reports
Wikipedia page for the Sendai quake
Japanese New York Times' commenters write about the quake
NPR Facebook page about the disaster
CNN Video
@earthquake_japan [updates in Japanese]
The Atlantic's In Focus photo blog
The Atlantic Wire liveblog
Mostly English Twitter hashtags: #japanquake, #jpquake, #earthquake, #Japan, #tsunami, #hitsunami
Mostly Japanese Twitter hashtags: #saigai, #eqjp
Columbia journalism professor Sree Sreenivasan's link aggregation

General Resources

Resources for People in Japan

Google Person Finder: a pop-up message board to post and find information about people missing. Almost 7000 records have been entered into the database.
Global Voices' bloggers on the ground in Japan
NTT Disaster voicemail service
Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency

Resources for the Pacific

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
Tsunami travel time map
@HawaiiNewsNow
HITsunami.com
Live cam at Ocean Beach in San Francisco by Mat Honan
Inundation map for the Bay Area [PDF]

Alexis C. Madrigal

Alexis Madrigal is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees the Technology channel. He's the author of Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology. More

The New York Observer calls Madrigal "for all intents and purposes, the perfect modern reporter." He co-founded Longshot magazine, a high-speed media experiment that garnered attention from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC. While at Wired.com, he built Wired Science into one of the most popular blogs in the world. The site was nominated for best magazine blog by the MPA and best science Web site in the 2009 Webby Awards. He also co-founded Haiti ReWired, a groundbreaking community dedicated to the discussion of technology, infrastructure, and the future of Haiti.

He's spoken at Stanford, CalTech, Berkeley, SXSW, E3, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and his writing was anthologized in Best Technology Writing 2010 (Yale University Press).

Madrigal is a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley's Office for the History of Science and Technology. Born in Mexico City, he grew up in the exurbs north of Portland, Oregon, and now lives in Oakland.