Big Quake Aftershock
Still don’t know how big, but it looks like it was centered in Tohoku. Sachi and I found out by having our iPhones buzz at us. Kind of a scary sound, like a a zapping siren.
Sure enough, moments later, we felt the shaking start. It was kind of like being on a truck on a bumpy road.
TV is reporting a 7.3. More soon.
Looks like it was centered in the ocean off of Sendai. This post did not go up, and I am having difficulty reaching certain sites.
There is a tsunami warning for Tohoku, with the greatest danger around Sendai—apparently, this was an aftershock—a big one, one and a half years later.
7.3 seems official. The epicenter seems about the exact same place as 3/11/11 quake. Am uploading video of what it was like here, 480 km (300 mi.). Here’s what Tenki.jp shows about the quake:
Here’s the video:
That’s set as “Unlisted,” and “privacy” is enhanced—let me know if you can’t see it.
They’re still saying there could be a 1-meter tsunami in Sendai.
Same magnitude as the Hanshin quake apparently.
But further away from people, and pretty much what could be destroyed by tsunami waves in the Tohoko region *was* destroyed last year.
Weird that you could feel this one, since I didn’t feel the Hanshin earthquake at all, and they’re about the same distance from Tokyo.
Judging by Ponta’s reaction, this earthquake wasn’t nearly as frightening as the one last year. That’s something to be thankful for.
But I heard something on the US news that Japan’s Richter scale uses a different range of number to measure a quake’s magnitude, so that a “7” on a Japanese scale is actually stronger than a Western “7”.
Have you heard that to be true?
–kensensei
Well, the 1995 Hanshin quake was 6.8 USGS is 7.3 in the JMA system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_seismic_intensity_scale
Well, Ponta is not the best indicator, perhaps. Not all dogs go into “Danger, Will Robinson!” mode when or before a quake hits. Second, Ponta was born shortly after the big quake, so has been through innumerable aftershocks; he may just see this as part of normal living.
And yes, Japan uses a different scale, the “Shindo,” which is not a logarithmic scale of energy release like the Richter scale, but is instead a scale based upon subjective experience—e.g., light shaking, medium shaking, things falling off shelves, structural damage occurring, etc. Both are used in Japan: Richter to show the absolute magnitude of the quake, and Shindo to show how much shaking was experienced in any one area.
The map shown in this post has lots of numbers in circles, that’s the Shindo. The Richter number, which I reported, is the one you are used to hearing about.
So, “7” is not the Shindo scale number—thankfully! If you refer to this table, you’ll see that a Shindo 7 is as strong as an earthquake gets.
Oh, I see.
Shindo = shake factor
Richter = magnitude factor
Got it.
In other news, so much for the DPJ!
Things were looking a lot better in 2008, sigh. I was hopeful Japan was on the road to turning into Sweden and its social-welfare state.
Wonder if the LDP is going to go through with the tax rise.
Abe has said he wants more printing from the BOJ, and a weaker yen.
That might be good for me if & when I come back (with savings & ongoing income from the US), and perhaps neutral for Luis — if they are serious about getting inflation going, rents might go up, which you’ve eliminated exposure to.
Our host is not in the export line of business, so won’t directly benefit from the yen going back to 120 or whatever, but a better job picture for Japan’s exporters does make a foreign-affiliated school more attractive I guess.
LDP is also going to restart the nuclear reactors, which will help Japan save money on energy imports in a weaker yen regime.
I don’t think Japan’s consumers are seeing the full benefits of the current ¥80 regime, so the yen retreating won’t hurt too much maybe.