Japan: Disaster: Heard on 'TV about tsuanimi & earthquakes hitting Japan, 2 Californians 'swept out to sea,' Hawai, Korea?

Confirmed: Update: Tokyo bad, buildings shaken, but not as bad as Japan's northeast -- where homes and buildings just washed away and cities submerged. Honolulu will be hit at 3 am, Honoliulu time I guess, tidal wave will will reach Chile , Australia, the whole coast of the Pacific and Oceana ....

'Seven metre wave' hits  Japan coast

Details of the devastation caused by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake to strike Japan and the ensuing tsunami are starting to emerge.

Victor Sardina, of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, told the programme that a seven metre wave had already been registered on the Japanese coast.

The tsunami was "almost certain" to cross the Pacific and reach Chile, he said.

Correspondent Roland Burke, reporting from Tokyo, describes the ships swept inland in the wake of the tsunami.

"The water where it did come in, came in with an immense amount of force," he said.

We heard that the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, which experienced a devastating earthquake some weeks back, was the forerunner of today's events in the west of the Pacific Rim and especially Japan.

We'll be fact-checking and posting in further detail.

-- posted by refWrite and entire staff