I set up this Tumblr last week to share my latest project, where I learn all about marketing new web technologies, since I’ve already got a decade of experience in building them.

But that seems a little trivial now, given that this past Friday was the worst natural disaster to occur in the history of Japan, where I just happen to be living.

For those of you who might have missed the news, the area roughly two hundred miles north of Tokyo got hammered by an M9 earthquake.

I live in Tokyo, which ‘only’ got hit by a M7.

To put these two numbers in perspective, the earthquake that devastated San Francisco in 1989 was about an M7. Thousands of people were injured and homeless, and it took years for the city to fully recover.

So, if you were Tokyo, getting hit by an M7 earthquake would be like being sucker-punched by Mike Tyson.

The quake that hit northern Japan was a hundred times more powerful than what we felt here.

A hundred times more powerful.

If you were Sendai, getting hit by an M9 quake would be like being sucker-punched by God. Twice, actually, since the first aftershock was an M8.8. Oh, and there have been a few M7-ish aftershocks too, so after our mythical super-being got bored, Mike Tyson stopped by and got a few shots in for good measure.

I’m not trying to make fun of the situation here, but to understand the destruction that the people of Sendai have suffered, you really need to move up into ‘comic book’ territory.

The destruction is quite literally simply too great to fit inside the human brain.  I’ve been at home since Friday, watching the local news, and if I didn’t have any context, I’d think that the videos were from some new Hollywood disaster movie.

At the moment, I’m looking for volunteer opportunities — if you know of any, I speak decent Japanese (enough to pass the JLPT2), have a small amount of medical training (first aid, CPR), a strong back, and a strong desire to help.

If I find anybody looking for volunteers, I’ll let you know.