"Major world events are pretty much always on topic. We just don't need minor regular news events here."
Sure, it fits, but HN is a notoriously inferior general news site.
If you heard about this first here, you're ill informed.
If this was your only source for this news, you're VERY ill informed.
It's a shame, HN first descended into being basically just a Reddit Subreddit hosted on a differently URL, and is now morphing into reddit.com/r/reddit.com (the anything-goes general reddit subreddit) with a slightly more technical audience.
Considering that the most useful link/comment in this thread is a link to a vastly superior, just incomparably more useful and informing reddit link, I think the point is made quite nicely.
Oh well, I guess HN is a wrapper around Reddit these days.
Hacker news is a global community and this affects developers and enthusiasts in Japan which may directly or indirectly affect everyone in this community.
..and for those that don't, probably a large majority of Hacker News readers live in an earthquake-prone region and worry about whether they're prepared for the next time a significant earthquake is going to happen to them.
I don't - but I have friends who do. I found out about the earthquake through HN and was able to contact my friends and see if they were safe.
I'm aware of the warning sirens. I spent a non-significant amount of time near the cost. You also don't need the news to tell you that you just felt a large earthquake, get to high ground.
