Watch: YouTube Footage of Japan Quake [VIDEOS]

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Victims and concerned parties quickly turned to the web to share news and footage. With the country's phone system down, tweets topped more than 1,200 per minute from Tokyo within the first hour of the quake. Both Ustream and Al Jazeera, among others, posted live video feeds online.

Citizens have also taken to Flickr and YouTube to share eyewitness accounts from inside their homes and public buildings, and from the streets with their neighbors. We've compiled five of the most illustrative here, most of which are from Tokyo, situated 230 miles from the earthquake's epicenter. (According to early reports, the earthquake originated off the coast of Honshu, the most populous of Japan's islands.)

Come across any additional, noteworthy footage? Please share it in the comments section below. You can also check out YouTube's CitizenTube channel, which is continually updating a playlist with more content.

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Image courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center