A few days ago a 7.2 magnitude Earthquake in China was first reported by several Twitter users, and only got picked up by the news agencies 20 or so minutes later.   Today it’s happening again:

地震！Earthquake in Tokyo! http://urltea.com/2zug

27 minutes ago from Zooomr

Reported by Kristopher Tate on Twitter.  No news agencies reported it yet. Google blog search reveals one post:

March 24
(3-24-08) EARTHQUAKE IN TOKYO, JAPAN!
I am sitting her at home in Shimoakatsuka, Itabashi-ku , Tokyo and I just felt an earthquake at about 12:41pm! Did anyone else feel the earthquake?

So it’s twitter and a single blog post.

The USGS site has the precise information: magnitude 5.3 Monday, March 24, 2008 at 03:40:13 UTC Honshu, Japan.

Still nothing on news wires.

Update:  Still nothing on the majors, but the Times of India and the Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan report it now.  Perhaps we need to redefine what a major news agency is

Tags: earthquake, japan, Twitter