I quote from someone living there :

My family and all relatives are OK.
All public transportation systems in Tokyo are not working.
The earthquake recorded Magnitude 8.8 which is the strongest in Japanese history.
Severe damages due to earthquake and TSUNAMI in TOHOKU area are reported
and many nuclear generators are automatically shutdown.
At this writing 23 dead is reported.
Japan situation is becoming much worse than Libya,due to this quake
in addition to political instability and worsening economy.

Last read 300 dead.

Devastating. Our heart goes out to friends that live there and are effected by this terrible tragedy.

more....

We are being struck by many strong aftershock but OK.

Casualty may reach 1,000.
We thank for many offers from foreign countries such as EU, Russia, China
and Korea to send rescue teams.

Present concern is that Tokyo Electric's nuclear generator's emergency core
cooling system
is not working due to power failure.
If the system can not recover , we will be struck by Chernobyl-like
tragedy.
The generator is located at Fukushima Pref. and government ordered
evacuation for people living within 3km radius of the
generator. This resembles four-engine flame-out of the 747!

I do hope emergency diesel power generator will restart soon before
melt-down.

Still big problems with the cooling systems of the nuclear reactors:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/11/AR2011031103673.html

The latest news is that it wasn't an explosion and the Reactor Core is fine. They are working with worldwide cooperation to keep it that way. Hopefully they will be successful. The word explosion is used sometimes by the media when they talk about Nuclear. It sells newspapers I guess. The nuclear part of it cannot explode. The only thing that I can think might happen is a fire maybe or the over pressurization of a pressure vessel.

Never has there been an outside event of this magnitude effected a Nuclear Plant. So far there hasn't been any injuries or excessive radiation outside of the plant to the best of my knowledge. It will take weeks to understand fully and hopefully they will keep the situation under control. The cooling of the reactor is the most critical. What is learned here will be used to improve design or upgrade as necessary. The evacuations are a wise precaution.

Risk assessment will again take place in both the public and scientific arenas. It would be a shame to have to write off this important source of clean energy which is still the only real alternative to fossil fuel, at least at the moment. This is definitely a setback though. Hope what we learn from this will make will bring us closer to better design solutions.

The latest news is that 3 people have been over exposed to radiation but where were these people in proximity to the reactor. In the building or a mile away? Also what level of radiation are they talking? Someone on the news said they received an overdose equal to what a person would get from everyday sources in a year. Bad but not real bad.

Also when I talked about pressure vessels above I'm not talking about the core. I'm talk about tanks like Air Tanks and many other pressure type vessels which are in any power plant. These tanks may have water in them and a fire can make the water into steam that could pressurize the vessel above its maximum safe working pressure.

Again there are quickly unfolding events talking place here and hopefully the damage is minimal but rightly so there is a lot of interest in this and I hope they keep the hysteria to a minimun. The foes of Nuclear of course are having a field day after being domant for years.

Dan thinks it's likely that it was a hydrogen explosion in the generator building where hydrogen gas is used as a coolant for the turbines. Not good but not nearly a serious as an explosion in the reactor building itself.

from a friend....

Well, that wasn't the greatest night of my life. Thanks for the
thoughts and we're all fine here. Power was only restored 45 minutes ago
after being out for about 21 hours. They cut the power immediately to about
8 million houses. They didn't in one place and 5 sq km of houses went up in
flames. Apparently the tsunami that hit Fukushima prefecture was 7.3 metres
high and washed a complete village out to sea. Our house has suffered in
that large internal cracks have appeared but I'm amazed that it's still
standing at all. When it became clear that anything that wasn't already on
the floor soon would be, I evacuated the house and was standing on the road
outside in the same manner as a surfer stands on a surfboard. Basically, in
the past 21 hours we have had about 40 earthquakes, of which 4 were severe
and 1 was extremely severe. In fact, they're still going on as I type.

In my time in Japan, that is my 70th earthquake. When I was a whole
lot younger I once said that I would like to experience a hurricane and an
earthquake. I think I'll pass on that hurricane......

Swaying buildings