The cataclysmic earthquake off the coast of Japan is shocking in its intensity and scope – all earthquakes are but this is of a completely different order. This is the big one. The one they’ve been waiting for in Tokyo since 1923. It is surely the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. 8.9 on the Richter scale is almost off it and that measurement is exponential. This was 1,000 times stronger than the Christchurch quake. They knew Kobe wasn’t it and that was hit by a 7.2 tremor. The devastation will rage around the Pacific Ocean, 10 metre tsunami waves being reported, everything being swept away in its path. Any aftershock will be of the magnitude of a major quake in itself. But in spite of this, it could have been so much more worse had it happened under a major city – if Tokyo-Yokohama had been in the same situation as Christchurch it would have been wiped out, like in 1923. Let the dead be mourned, the injured consoled and hope the material damage is not permanent or long-lasting (the nuclear power stations seem to have survived) and be grateful that, as this was going to happen at some point, the epicentre was probably where the damage would be at its most limited, great as it currently appears to be.