An earthquake of 8.9 magnitude should be setting off alarm bells, check out this list-
1 01960-05-22May 22, 1960 Valdivia, Chile 1960 Valdivia earthquake 9.5
2 01964-03-27March 27, 1964 Prince William Sound, USA 1964 Alaska 9.2
3 02004-12-26December 26, 2004 Sumatra, Indonesia 9.1
4 01952-11-04November 4, 1952 Kamchatka, Russia 9.0 [1]
5 01868-08-13August 13, 1868 Arica, Chile earthquake 9.0 [2]
6 01700-01-26January 26, 1700 Cascadia earthquake 9.0
7 02011-03-11March 11, 2011 Japan 8.9
then according to this list of largest earthquakes this earthquake is the 7th largest in recorded history...
and notice that 5 of the 7 largest earthquakes have happened in the last 60 years or so.
granted that is in recorded history but on a geological timeline that is like seconds apart.
these huge 8 plus quakes are all over the place now-
and if you go to the top 20 biggest earthquakes in this chart, 13 of the last 20 have occured since 1950 and the timeline goes back to 1575.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
cannot believe the video i am seeing of this quake, hopefully they will not have many big aftershocks.