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Travelers rest on the floor stranded at the Haneda airport Friday, March 11,... ( Wally Santana )
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Today: Google activates its crisis response page after an 8.9-magnitude quake in Japan, which killed hundreds of people, sent a tsunami across the Pacific to California, and disrupted an already fragile Japanese economy -- stalling production of chips, electronics and automobiles.

8.9 quake, Pacific tsunami

Mountain View Internet giant Google today activated its Japanese earthquake and tsunami crisis response page -- a project of its Google.org philanthropy arm -- after a devastating 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit in the ocean near Japan.

The deadly quake was so powerful that it sent


a tsunami across the Pacific Ocean all the way to the California coast, causing damage to harbors in Santa Cruz and Crescent City.

The crisis response page at www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html includes such resources as Google's Person Finder service, news, U.S. Geological Service earthquake information and real-time search updates.

The page also includes links to message boards set up by Japanese wireless carriers that can be used to send text messages to their customers.

Google had set up previous crisis response pages for such disasters as last month's Christchurch

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earthquake in New Zealand, the 2010 earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and China's Qinghai province and the 2009 Lockheed fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Here in Northern California, the tsunami caused damage to numerous boats and yachts at the Santa Cruz Harbor. Beaches and roads were closed along the coast, residents near the shore were urged to evacuate, and BART officials monitored the situation in case they needed to shut down service between Oakland and San Francisco, where trains run underwater in the Transbay Tube.

According to the USGS, the quake near Japan -- 231 miles northeast of Tokyo -- was the fifth-most-powerful in the world since 1900. The tsunami caused by the quake sent 23-foot-high waves to the country's eastern coast, according to The Associated Press. Hundreds of people were killed.

According to The New York Times, the devastation of such a disaster would have been much worse in most countries. Building codes in Japan, though, are among the world's strongest. Even so, according to AP, the disaster is likely to slow Japan's already sluggish economy, at least in the near future.

According to a note this afternoon from El Segundo tech researcher IHS iSuppli, Japan accounts for 13.9 percent -- or $216.6 billion in 2010 -- of global electronic equipment production. Japan accounts for about one-fifth of global semiconductor production, the firm estimates.

"The major impact on Japan's semiconductor production is not likely to be direct damage to production facilities, but disruption to the supply chain," iSuppli analysts noted in an e-mail. "Suppliers are likely to encounter difficulties in getting raw materials supplied and distributed and shipping products out. This is likely to cause some disruption in semiconductor supplies from Japan during the next two weeks."

Automakers Toyota, Honda and Nissan have stopped production while damage is assessed, and a Honda worker was killed by a collapsing factory wall, according to AP. Airlines canceled flights to Tokyo's closed international airport.

For the latest updates on the Pacific tsunami and Japan earthquake, go to www.mercurynews.com.

Tech headlines

  • NPD Group reported that video game sales climbed 3 percent in February compared with a year earlier, according to AP. That was in part due to strong sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Kinect motion controller.
  • Apple began taking online orders at 1 a.m. this morning for its new iPad tablet computer. At last check, though, shipping for online orders is in two to three weeks. Sales begin at 5 p.m. at Apple Store locations, Best Buy, Target, Verizon Wireless, Walmart and selected Apple dealers.

    Silicon Valley tech stocks

    Up: Apple, Oracle, Intel, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, VMware, Juniper Networks.

    Down: Google, eBay, Gilead Sciences.

    The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Up 14.59, or 0.5 percent, to 2,715.61.

    The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Up 59.78, or 0.5 percent, to 12,044.40.

    And the widely watched Standard & Poor's 500 index: Up 9.17, or 0.7 percent, to 1,304.28.