Japan 9.0 Earthquake

I have been watching the events of the 9.0 Japanese earthquake with horror and sadness wishing instead that I were watching one of my science fiction end of the world movies; sadly, what I have been watching is reality and I feel sorry for the people in Japan. I am no stranger to earthquakes throughout my life and more recently the 2010 Baja California quake during which I felt tremendous fear so I cannot imagine how a 9.0 earthquake felt and the amount of time it lasted, it must have felt like an eternity that the ground shook. Then the subsequent tsunami was frightful and now the nuclear power plants are melting down, sadly this is a true real life disaster in the making.
The magnitude of the quake was so intense there were actual physical changes to the Earth's rotation on its axis.
From NewsRoomAmerica:

(Newsroom America) -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the March 11, magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan may have shortened the length of each Earth day and shifted its axis, but it says you shouldn't notice the difference.Using a United States Geological Survey estimate for how the fault responsible for the earthquake slipped, research scientist Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., applied a complex model to perform a preliminary theoretical calculation of how the Japan earthquake-the fifth largest since 1900-affected Earth's rotation.His calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth's mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).The calculations also show the Japan quake should have shifted the position of Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by about 17 centimeters (6.5 inches), towards 133 degrees east longitude.Gross said Earth's figure axis should not be confused with its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet). This shift in Earth's figure axis will cause Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but it will not cause a shift of Earth's axis in space-only external forces such as the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon and planets can do that, it said.

Wow, amazing statistics. You can read more HERE.