I just got home. Luckily, I had driven my scooter in to work this morning, a rarity for me–and it allowed me to get home and see if Sachi was OK, and to let her know I was.

I was in the office on the 6th floor. It started small, like “Oh, do you feel that tremor?” Then it got stronger, in stages, each new level greater than the last, until we finally got to the stage where you knew this was a big one. Books flying off of desks, everyone diving for cover. It lasted long, too. Right away, you could tell it wasn’t local–the slow start, the sideways-rolling motion. But for that minute or two when we were experiencing it, there was the question of whether or not the building would collapse in some way.

Of course, it didn’t. Here in Tokyo, it felt huge, but not so terrible we couldn’t stand and walk unsteadily. Not as bad as being on the ground in Loma Prieta, I’m told. But big. Pictures to come, but our office floor was covered with papers and books.

Everyone was OK. No one around us was hurt. All the students were OK, but everyone was outside, and it was cold and windy today. I imagine they are still trying to get back home–but everyone was OK.

They are now reporting that it was an 8.4 on the Richter scale, hitting at 2:46, followed by offshore aftershocks of 7.0, 7.4, and 6.6. We certainly felt those as well.

For a quake that big in Tokyo, it was about 230 miles distant from Tokyo, about 70 miles off the northern Japan coast.

We just felt a big aftershock right now, the second big one we’ve felt since I got home.

More soon.