Niigata Earthquake!

[Akai-San]

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 rocked a wide area of Niigata Prefecture and its vicinity Monday morning. Earthquake toppled houses, causing a fire at a nuclear power plant and suspending bullet train services. A lot of damage experienced to many of the old structures. Japanese television reports mentioned five people were killed and over 800 reported injuries. The summer rains have also just started, so they are also expecting landsliding to occur in the mountain areas. Hope everyone is safe.

I'm not sure what part of Niigata was affected, but Nagano is another area that was mentioned - hit hard by the quake. Oh oh, I'm feeling some small tremors as I'm posting this....whoa...(not joking) and I live in Kanagawa, Tokyo.

[B.Scott]

Listening to the Radio I have heard that the damage was quite severe. The quake cause a vertical displacement instead of a lateral one, thus cause more damage than one would otherwise expect.
I fear the worst.

B.Scott

[Koimann]

I was watching the NHK Japanese channel about the quake,luckily the Niigata area was not the epicentre of the quake as were in 2004.But the quake was 6.8 magnitude which can do lots of damage.My prayers goes to all those breeders around that area and hopefully they are spared by the quake.............

[trac]

Ojiya, and Yamakoshi areas did not sustain any serious damages it has been confirmed that all Nishikigoi breeders are safe, and none of them has reported damages to either their Nishikigoi or to their facilities according to the INPC.