Japan earthquake: Twitter reaction
Reaction on Twitter to the powerful 8.9 magnitude earthquake which struck Japan this morning has been instant and intense, as the channel rapidly becomes the go-to service in emergencies.
The earthquake off the north east of Japan (the seventh most powerful in recorded history) has caused widespread damage along the country's coastline, sparking widespread power outages and fires and triggering a powerful tsunami reportedly 10m high in places.
With the country’s phone system knocked out, the number of tweets coming from Tokyo topped 1,200 per minute less than an hour after disaster struck, according to Tweet-o-Meter.
The quake garnered the attention of the world with four topics trending world-wide simultaneously on the microblogging site.
Tweets have been coming from all over the world under hash tags #prayforjapan, #tsunami, #japan and #quake