As you may (or may not) know, there was a 7.2 magnitude
earthquake in northern Japan this morning. The epicenter was right across the southeast border of Akita in Iwate Prefecture. It seems most of the shock went further southeast, so up to the northwest, where I live, the shaking was less severe. On this map, you can assume I live pretty much where the little "Akita" box is indicating Akita City. As you can see, while the news articles mention the shaking in big city Sendai and even in Tokyo, I'm a lot closer to the epicenter than them.It occurred at 8:44am, and being Saturday morning, I was still asleep. I woke up to my whole bed vibrating and shaking, and the walls rattling and making noises. It took me a second to figure out what was going on. My bed is in a room where two "walls" are non-safety-glass sliding doors, so my first thought was I should get away from those. I jumped out of bed and did what I'm sure was a cartoon-y, arms-flailing run to the next room where I stood in a doorway, because I remember that's what I was taught in elementary school (kudos for all the earthquake safety lessons, CA public schools!). Anyway, the shaking stopped after a few seconds (this whole ordeal was probably less than a minute, but it felt long), and aside from some papers and books sliding off my desk and table, there was no damage.
Click here to see a video posted by the BBC showing the quake and some of the damage.
It was definitely bigger and shakier (and scarier, to be frank) than any earthquake I've felt before (in Berkeley). Oh, plus, after it ended, I thought I better turn on the TV and make sure there wasn't a tsunami warning, because Akitans always tell me about how earthquakes cause dangerous tsunamis and give me all kinds of scary examples - in the 1980s, a post-quake tsunami killed several people on the Akita coast, including a foreign missionary lady, so I think they think foreigners should be extra careful. Thankfully, no tsunami warning this time. My house is probably not really in danger of a tsunami anyway, but how would I know, I'm from Chico.
From what I'm reading and seeing on the news, there have been four deaths, numerous injuries and missing people. :( Rescue workers are on the job though, so hopefully people will be found an helped. Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of structural damage, and though landslides have blocked/destroyed some roads, the trains are running fine. Some areas lost power when the nuclear plant preventively shut-down, but I believe it's mostly been restored now.
I had plans to go hiking tomorrow with some Japanese friends, but due to recent rainfall and this quake, the landslide danger is too great, so we're going bowling instead. Safety first!
Alright, that's it for the earthquake update. Thanks to those of you who called or emailed to check on me. I appreciate your concern and I'm really happy to report that I'm A-OK. :)
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