Friday, March 11, 2011

From Japan

From DQ Reader And Official Japanese Correspondent Michael M, received earlier today:
It's 2 a.m. here and I'm still wide awake. Quake happened ~14:46. So it's been 12 hours since the main shock and there are still aftershocks! Just felt one about 2 minutes ago. Thought it might be ok to go to sleep, but... apparently I was wrong:
Latest Earthquakes In The World [note: aftershocks up to 6.8 magnitude]

Am frazzled from the aftershocks, but otherwise, am in a dry, heated house with electricity and internet, so I can't complain. Just east of my house, the power is out, so I'm lucky by the skinniest of margins.


For an idea of where I'm at, I live in Utsunomiya (76mi. N. of Tokyo). Sendai is about 150mi. N/NE of me. So what Tokyo got, I got worse. However, I wasn't in an area teeming with millions of people or full of tall buildings. (aftershock hitting right now... just wish they'd stop!) This is what happened to Tokyo: skyscrapers swaying.

I couldn't even watch all that. I didn't have tall buildings, but I did watch a forklift in my parking lot bounce around a bit. Almost fell over a few times as well (just standing on asphalt). Not a great feeling. Impressive, but not great.

That video of the skyscrapers is astonishing--it looks like they're swaying 10-15 feet in each direction, at least.

For everyone in Japan, I hope you and everyone close to you is well.

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