Big One, Even 400 km Away
About half an hour ago, Sachi and I woke up to the building swaying: an earthquake, and a relatively sizable one. The building swayed strongly enough for us to notice pretty easily in bed, and the doors made creaking sounds as they swayed (probably what woke us more than the movement). The swaying here lasted for several minutes. The epicenter was 240 miles (400 km) distant.
My usual quake sites report a 6.7 on the Richter, but the TV is saying it was a 7.0; in Japanese quake scale terms, it was a “strong 6,” which is pretty huge. No major news stories on Google News yet.
No tidal wave concerns–it was way inland. Probably not too much fun in Iwate or Akita, in norther Honshu where the quake was centered–but the epicenter looks fairly sparsely populated. Still, probably a few small villages just got wiped out.
Damn I just arrived in Tokyo and turned on the TV and saw this. Crazy! That area got tore up, especially the mountains. There are a bunch of butt naked people trapped inside a partially collapsed onsen.
BTW you should blog about the new subway line that opened today
Alex: Welcome to Tokyo! You came during a relatively nice patch of weather (though it was a bit cool and windy at times today). Watchya doin’ here?
As for the subway line, I fully plan to blog on it–first chance I get to see it. Sachi and I had errands today that did not take us near there, and tomorrow we’re visiting friends also away from the line. Monday I should get to it.
Luis: I’m here presenting at RubyKaigi next weekend inTsukuba. The title of my talk is “Building a Scalable Startup with Ruby”.
I’m planning on riding that new subway today up to Kishibojin with my wife so we can reminisce a little. Last time I was here about a year ago they were working on that station 24/7. It will be interesting to see what impact that station has on the neighborhood.