Big earthquake in Tokyo!

[Brian]

There was a pretty powerful earthquake late this afternoon, which left me stranded in Shinjuku for about 4 hours. This is the biggest one that I've ever felt, and I'm not ashamed to say...I was scared!

Alarms were going off everywhere and most train service experienced outages. My train line shut until tomorrow, so I had to find another way home. No major damage though, so no need to worry.

Well Akai-san, you've experienced your first earthquake, so I guess this is your formal welcome to Japan!

[jnorth]

Glad the damage was all minor. Seems like a very large increase in the number of earthquakes the last few years.

[Jules]

Brian Hope al is well out there for every body. My wife was in the bath on the 6th floor of the Grand in Nagyoka back in October and that was "different" to saay the least. I must admit that it does put you on edge. Hope all is back to normal soon.

Jules

[Ruth Rice]

HI Brian,
Just heard on the news. I feel so bad for the people of Japan who must be wondering when all of these quakes will stop. I wonder did Japan always have smaller earthquakes like California does? If so I never heard about them. Stay safe.
Ruth

[Jules]

Ruth if you look at the link I have posted this shows al the minor and major eathquakes that happen in Japan. You can scroll down to the bottom of the page and go back month by month. Hope you find it of interest.

Jules

http://www.fnet.bosai.go.jp/freesia/...hypo/joho.html
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/general/seismicity/world.html
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/qed/
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqsmosde.html
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqstats.html

[dick benbow]

Brian, follow up pls...when they close down the lines how does one get home?
how much longer does it take, how much does it expedite the cost to do so etc.


the first earthquake i ever experience was in Tokyo. It doesn't take much to close my eyes and think back...and it comes back fresh. The only other thing that i experienced as bad was in a tornado. I went to see the movie a few years back and I broke out in a sweat got nauseated and had to go out in the lobby
before i could go back in. That really brought back memories...scared yep that's a pretty good word for it!

[Akai-San]

Quote: Originally Posted by Brian There was a pretty powerful earthquake late this afternoon, which left me stranded in Shinjuku for about 4 hours. This is the biggest one that I've ever felt, and I'm not ashamed to say...I was scared! Alarms were going off everywhere and most train service experienced outages. My train line shut until tomorrow, so I had to find another way home. No major damage though, so no need to worry. Well Akai-san, you've experienced your first earthquake, so I guess this is your formal welcome to Japan!

Brian,
They didn't have to go through all that trouble to welcome me. I must say though, I did get scared. I was in my room when I started to here all the black crows sounding off in the distance. Then it started, first a slow side to side, I thought..."what the?" Then the tremor got a little longer and more steady...I think that was the fastest I've seen this body whip out a door down three flights of stairs and out of the building...must have been three seconds flat...Hahaha. Outside, all the light poles were still shaking a couple minutes after the wave. I'm glad after shocks didn't continue throughout the day, I probably wouldn't have gone to sleep.

[Brian]

Quote: Originally Posted by Akai-San Brian, They didn't have to go through all that trouble to welcome me. I must say though, I did get scared. I was in my room when I started to here all the black crows sounding off in the distance. Then it started, first a slow side to side, I thought..."what the?" Then the tremor got a little longer and more steady...I think that was the fastest I've seen this body whip out a door down three flights of stairs and out of the building...must have been three seconds flat...Hahaha. Outside, all the light poles were still shaking a couple minutes after the wave. I'm glad after shocks didn't continue throughout the day, I probably wouldn't have gone to sleep.

Carl,

I'd advise you to actually stay inside, in the safest area of your home that's accessible to an exit. If you've not notice all the utility poles that still exist with their spiderweb of attached power lines, live wires are a definite problem after an earthquake. It amazes me all the disagreeable terrain that we can tunnel through here, but still can't out electric/phone/cable lines underground yet.

[Brian]

Quote: Originally Posted by dick benbow Brian, follow up pls...when they close down the lines how does one get home? how much longer does it take, how much does it expedite the cost to do so etc. the first earthquake i ever experience was in Tokyo. It doesn't take much to close my eyes and think back...and it comes back fresh. The only other thing that i experienced as bad was in a tornado. I went to see the movie a few years back and I broke out in a sweat got nauseated and had to go out in the lobby before i could go back in. That really brought back memories...scared yep that's a pretty good word for it!

Hey Dick!

When the lines aren't running, there's not much you can do except hound the station staff as to when they'll be back up and in all probability, they don't know. As I was in Shinjuku meeting with someone concerning the mag, I had my laptop so I exited the station and tried to find a hotpoint to be able to post to the board. Failing that, I walked around and tried to piggyback off the first wireless network I could find. That didn't work either.

I ended up finding a little Taiwanese home-cooking restaurant and settled myself down in there for about an hour and a half and ate dinner and read. Going back to the JR station (Japan Rail, not our esteemed poster having the same initials), it seems that my line was down for the night. I walked around the station to get to the other side (anyone who's ever been to Shinjuku can sympathize what a task that is, as there's no direct path through the station, you have to walk around it to get to the other side...and it's massive!) looking for subway lines that were still running. I struck gold at the third station, and proceeded along a very serpentine route home. What should have taken an hour ended up taking almost 5, but I was nonetheless just happy to be home.

The other option was to wait for a taxi. By my estimate, the queue was approaching 1,000 persons and I didn't feel like waiting over an hour for the privilege of paying a high fare to get home.

On the bright side...I certainly got my exercise that day!

[Ruth Rice]

Thanks for the links Jules. Apparantly there are alot of quakes that we never hear of.

Hope things have settled down Brian