Google worked with four city governments in the Tōhoku area to get the imagery, which was collected using the same technology the company uses for its indoor business photos. They were able to photograph over 30 buildings.

“A year ago we released Street View imagery of areas in Northeastern Japan that were affected by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami,” says Google Street View Group Product Manager Kei Kawai. “Our hope was that the 360-degree panoramas would provide a comprehensive, accurate and easy-to-use way for people around the world to view the damage to the region by enabling a virtual walk through of the disaster zones. The panoramas were only the start of our digital archiving project.”

“The timing of the project was critical,” says Kawai “There has been a strong debate in these areas whether to keep the buildings up as a permanent reminder of the tragedy or to tear them down to allow emotional wounds to heal. After long consultations with their citizens, many local governments have decided to move forward with demolishing the buildings. Knowing this, we quickly moved to photograph the buildings before they started to be dismantled.”

Kamaishi Municipal Toni Elementary School

Rikuzentakata City Public Housing

Ukedo Elementary School

Google says it will continue to photograph more buildings in two Iwate Prefecture cities, Ōfunato and Kamaishi, over the coming weeks.

“I’m more concerned about our constant input of trash than I am about these one-time disasters,” lead author Miriam Goldstein explained to the Los Angeles Times. “We can’t prevent terrible events like the tsunami, but dumping plastic into the ocean is something we can control and don’t do very well.”

Scientists are also concerned about the extremely large amount of debris from the 2011 tsunami that will soon call the garbage patch home. An estimated two million tons of construction material, refrigerators, TVs, fishing boats, and a vast array of other items are expected to make their way towards coastal towns, thought some of these items will certainly get caught in the putrid island’s clutches along the way. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently stated that they expect debris to reach Oregon, Washington state, Alaska, and Canada between March 2014 and March 2015.

Just recently, a large wooden deck, which is thought to have originated in northern Japan, washed up on the shores of Oregon. “What we have is a really large, well-built dock that survived a cross-ocean voyage,” a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation explained. “It’s 66 feet long, 19 feet wide and seven feet tall, covered with reinforced concrete. We’re used to debris and trash that you can pick up and throw in a trash bag, and the occasional vessel that runs aground. Something like this, this large, this heavy, requires a little more careful handling.”

According to Wikipedia, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (aka Pacific Trash Vortex) is characterized by its “characterized by exceptionally high concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge, and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.” Although the island’s existence was predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Charles J. Moore is credited with first seeing the patch during a sailing race in 1997.

The soccer ball, found by Alaskan resident David Baxter, belongs to 16-year-old Misaki Murakami from Japan. Baxter found Murakami’s soccer ball (which had Japanese writing, Murakami’s name, along with words of encouragement) while beachcombing on Middleton Island, 70 miles south of the Alaskan mainland. Baxter tells the Associated Press the following quote via e-mail:

“When I first saw the soccer ball I was excited to see it and I thought it was possible it came from the tsunami zone.”

David told the story to his wife, Yumi, who then contacted Murakami (with a reporter’s help) to let him know that the soccer ball that he had lost in the tsunami had been found. Murakami was overjoyed to receive the news about the ball, which had been given to him as a gift in 2005 when he transferred schools. Murakami told public broadcaster NHK the following statement pertaining to his joy of receiving the news about his soccer ball:

“It was a big surprise. I’ve never imagined that my ball has reached Alaska. I’ve lost everything in the tsunami. So I’m delighted. I really want to say thank you for finding the ball.”

The Alaskan couple plan to visit Japan in May to return the ball to Murakami; however, they will not officially meet, because they “don’t want to create too much of a commotion.”

Although there were no signs of an impending tsunami, residents were urged to move to higher ground as a precaution and several fishermen were called in to land. The quake sent panic through those affected as memories of the devastating tsunami disaster in 2004, which claimed over 230,000 lives in 13 different countries, no doubt became fresh in their minds again. The magnitude of that quake was 9.1. Recent news reports say the tsunami warning has been called off, but officials are urging residents to be cautious and are continuing with evacuations.

Early reports say that phone lines are down, traffic jams are clogging the streets as people move to safer ground, and the power is out for thousands. There are no reports of major damage so far, although Oxfam International tweeted that they were at the ready for anyone who needed assistance.

The tsunami hit the eastern coastline later but no reports of damage have been filed as of yet. Local residents were warned to evacuate well before the wave struck. Early reports say the waves hit two locations in Aomori, which was one of the most devastated areas in last year’s tragedy, in which an 8.9 magnitude quake caused a tsunami which claimed over 19,000 lives and was declared Japan’s worst post-war disaster.

The quake comes just three days after the one-year anniversary of that disaster, and on Sunday the cities of Japan were silent as families remembered the losses suffered in the disaster. Last year Google used their Street View cars to compile before and after pictures of the areas struck by the tsunami, and the results were staggering. As a good many people affected are still trying to pick up the pieces in the aftermath, many here in the states and beyond are offering prayers and thoughts to Japan.

Today, they’ve announced that the project has come to fruition. 44,000 kilometers worth of driving has yielded some unbelievable before and after photos that are now available for everyone to see using Street View.

In the bottom left corner of each image you’ll also see a month and year that tells you when a particular photograph was taken. When looking at images of the magnificent cities side-by-side with images of the ruins left in their place, this additional context demonstrates how truly life-changing this tragedy has been for those who live there and witnessed the destruction of their homes, neighborhoods and even entire districts.

This timestamp feature has been the most requested Street View feature for the last few years, and it is now available on Street View imagery worldwide. Professionals such as historians, architects, city planners and tourism boards—as well as regular users including travelers and home-buyers—can now get a sense of how fresh the online photos are for a locations that interests them

You can access the new Street View photos by simply going to Google Maps and entering Street view in the specific areas, but it’s better if you visit the Build The Memory site, which is devoted to the before and after shots.

It might be a little tough to find perfect before and after shots, but if you search up Japan’s Northeast coast, it won’t take you too long. Once you zoom in on a particular area, you can hit the “before” or “after” buttons at the top and see a photo of the same location, either pre or post tsunami.

Doing so will give you amazing contrasts like these from Onagawa, Oshika Distrcit, Miyagi Prefecture:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

As you can see, the devastation is immense. At least this sort of thing can provide context for people who were too young to remember the disasters or perhaps hadn’t even been born yet. Another interesting visualization of the Japan disasters was released by Twitter back in June. It shows the volume of tweets being sent during the earthquake and the chaotic period afterward.

According to Symantec, malware creators have devised malicious software and websites designed to make money from concerned members of the public, by targeting specific web searches so that their sites get listed in results. Such queries include things like "western Samoa," "Earthquake," "Tsunami," etc.

When users go to these sites, they are presented with fake antivirus scan attempts, which offer to clean users’ computers. Of course they do just the opposite.

The subject is really just reflective of a larger phenomenon in which cybercriminals are preying on innocent searchers by targeting topics that are highly searched for. There’s nothing more heavily searched for than current events, and there are plenty of tools out there that give away this information. Things like Google’s Hot Trends, Yahoo’s popular searches, and  Twitter’s trending topics are generally good indicators of queries that are being heavily searched for.

"These types of attack are becoming increasingly prevalent online," says Hon Lau, Security Response Manager at Symantec. "We recently identified similar attacks following both the Serena Williams outburst and the Twitter based attacks reported last week. The people behind these scams are constantly evolving and adapting their attacks to suit current news events. Unfortunately there is no event, no matter how heartbreaking, which a hacker will not try to profit from."

Symantec warns users to be "vigilant and cautious" of any search results which appear not to link to trusted sources.

Dubbed by some as “the Chinese Tsunami,” fears abound about the possible damage to the textile industry as a result of the expiration.

The MFA imposed restrictions on Chinese exports, creating a leg-up for smaller industries in developing nations.

But last January, the dam broke, allowing Chinese manufacturers to fully compete in world trade. The result for smaller manufacturers, especially in Africa and Asia, has been almost a complete shut down on production.

Case in point, Lesotho in sub-Saharan Africa. Lesotho was given a “foot-in-the-door” by the MFA, but since the eradication of quotas, has had to all but shut down its factories.

One might expect an impact on smaller producers, but developed nations are feeling the pinch as well. Yesterday, the top European Union trade official, Peter Mandelson, said that he would open a formal two-month investigation of the flood of Chinese textiles into European markets.

The concern comes from clothing makers, especially in France and Italy, as they struggle with a 534% surge of imports in nine categories of clothing and textiles – T-shirts, sweaters, blouses, stockings and socks, men’s trousers, women’s coats, bras, and flax yarn.

This influx has driven the EU to consider reinstating quotas or adding tariffs to textile imports.

Pressure is also being put on the Bush Administration in the U.S., which has already introduced sanctions, to impose stricter protective measures.

China has expressed vehement opposition to the consideration of restrictions.

Yi Xiazhun, assistant minister of commerce in China said, “adopting the administrative measures of the era of classification quotas is unfair to China. It’s turning back to the past.”

Yi added that China would “resolutely oppose” any measures taken to reimpose quotas.

Mr Mandelson , who seeks first a voluntary agreement from China, said, “Chinese exports should, of course, be allowed to grow at a normal speed following the removal of quotas. But we must also extend protection to European industry if it is faced with a ruinous surge of unprecedented proportions.”

A WTO study released in September predicted that China and India will dominate about 80% of the global textile market in the post-MFA era.

They recently launched a new earthquake/tsunami notification system, making vital US Geological Survey data more easily and immediately accessible to the average person (as well as to other tech developers who can take PubSub’s XML feed to build notifications into other consumer applications).

“We realized our Internet-scale matching and notification system was ideal for making this critical data more easily and quickly available to the average person. So we’ve developed a system to translate the USGS technical feed into XML – the standard language of the Web,” said Bob Wyman, chief technology officer of PubSub Concepts, Inc.

Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

The blogosphere was quick to respond in force in a variety of ways. In fact, it was an encouraging footnote to a horrific natural disaster. BlogPulse breaks down how the world helped out online. An interesting footnote is how blogs are helping hold relief organizations accountable to how tsunami relief funds are being spent.

Here is the BlogPulse intro …

“The world watched in horror and awe on Dec. 26, 2004 as an earthquake and tsunami devastated wide areas of Southern Asia.

BlogPulse’s analysis of tsunami-related coverage in the blogsphere follows.”

Kevin Dugan is the author of the popular Strategic Public Relations blog. Kevin is Director of Marketing Communications for FRCH Design Worldwide.

Visit Kevin’s blog: Strategic Public Relations.