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Felt THAT One

May 8th, 2008

I just felt a quake here (at 1:02 am), which in Ikebukuro above the 20th floor, seemed fairly strong; it was one of those long, swaying types that usually indicates a stronger earthquake some distance away. Sure enough, the quake was some distance off the east coast of Japan, magnitude 6.3. they say there’s no tsunami threat.

The interesting thing is, there seem to have been about half a dozen medium-to-large quakes in roughly the same area over the last 12 hours:

2:39 pm, (5/7/08) M 4.5
6:59 pm, M 4.9
7:50 pm, M 4.6
12:25 am (5/8/08), M 4.6
1:02 am, M 6.3
1:10 am, M 4.2

Damn, there’s another one, feels even bigger than before, but is showing as 5.6:

1:18 am, M 5.6 (correction: M 6.2)

That last one was very shallow, only 100 meters (?) below the surface, again off the east coast in the same area as the others. This is starting to get me worried that it’s building up to something bigger. But it’s really having an effect–it started three minutes ago, and my building is swaying more than before!

Seriously, this is getting creepy.

Update: More quakes registered, though I didn’t feel them:

1:25 am, M 4.1

Plus a few in Tohoku, northern Honshu, under 4.0

Update 2: OK, THAT WAS BIG! A 7.2-magnitude quake, again off the Chiba coast. The place is really rocking now! Woke poor Sachi up. Doors knocked, building creaked. Even felt some up-and-down action at the start.

The TV is saying it was only 6.7, hitting at 1:45 am. The building here is just finishing its rocking, six minutes later. Wow.

Are we finished yet?

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  1. ykw
    May 8th, 2008 at 01:44 | #1

    Lots of little ones might relieve pressure, which is good. Or perhaps it means something big is to follow. I don’t think the experts know much about this.

  2. May 8th, 2008 at 02:06 | #2

    Thanks for the updates… can’t get any info on the quakes yet on any US news. Do you have a website where we can news on the quakes?

  3. May 8th, 2008 at 02:17 | #3

    Wow. I just woke うp on the 1:45am quake. Appearently it had only a JMA Seismic Intensity of 3 in my area in Tokyo but the whole house shook for a while after that as well although we are sleeping on the ground floor. More info on this quake here.

  4. Luis
    May 8th, 2008 at 08:40 | #4

    Alex:

    I usually get info from two sites:

    http://www.tenki.jp
    http://www.hinet.bosai.go.jp/

  5. Kenzo
    May 10th, 2008 at 19:46 | #5

    I hate earthquakes… oh, my gosh.

    P.S. These days, I met Prof Ms. Ruth.L at new LCJ office, and asked her about my English accent, like “British or American?” — then she replied, “Mixed.” — so I analysed my English accent like; about 60% British-RP-liked, 30% Americanised, and 10% domestic Japanese-liked. My English accent is NOT snobbish, she proved. Thanks for her.

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