Posted by Jess
31 Mar 2011
Aftershocks happen really frequently here these days but its hard to feel most of them in Tokyo. As you know from previous posts, Japan is pretty earthquake happy in a normal state - somewhere in the country, probably every day, there's a small quake.
After the earthquake on March 11th though, things really started rocking. It seems like the north of Japan is just constantly getting hit - both on the fault line from the big one, and then on the opposite side of the island as well. The Japanese Meteorological Agency reports (just like the US Geological Survey does) all the earthquakes. When I feel something here, I go check out what's happening on the website to see what I felt. Many times in the past I'd look out there and see nothing - something in my equilibrium made me think there was an earthquake when there wasn't. So strange.
I've also downloaded an iPhone app called "QuakeWatch" that reports the same information. So last night at dinner I was able to scope things out after we felt an aftershock. That one was a 6.1 and I'm not sure if it was because we'd had a few, but we barely felt it. One guy was walking around when it came and he didn't feel it at all. And that's kind of how it is - you really only notice them if you're sitting quietly or have a glass of water nearby. The epicenters are usually still 150-200 miles away and even when they are closer, the shaking is not as drastic as I might have pictured it to be before coming here. Although Jason's view might be different I'm sure after having been through such a strong quake!
Wednesday was pretty active for aftershocks, mostly in the 4-5.5 range. The all-knowing iPhone tells me there were 14, not counting other random ones that were not aftershocks of the March 11th quake. There was one 6.0 in the middle of the day, but I didn't feel it - I was in a meeting during that time so I must have been busy talking or concentrating on the work at hand and didn't even notice it. But a 5.3 tonight and I felt it because I was just sitting here at the computer watching Glee.
I guess I'm sharing this because when I tweet or facebook that we had an aftershock and it was a 6.0, I remember how dreadful that would have sounded to me a few months ago. But these are still pretty far away from Tokyo and we're built to withstand things like this (the tsunami was a MUCH bigger cause of damage and death than the earthquake was) so I want to say - don't worry!
Coming soon - a blogpost about something non-earthquake related - yay! Stay tuned...
Kanpai!
Jess
31 Mar 2011
Aftershocks happen really frequently here these days but its hard to feel most of them in Tokyo. As you know from previous posts, Japan is pretty earthquake happy in a normal state - somewhere in the country, probably every day, there's a small quake.
After the earthquake on March 11th though, things really started rocking. It seems like the north of Japan is just constantly getting hit - both on the fault line from the big one, and then on the opposite side of the island as well. The Japanese Meteorological Agency reports (just like the US Geological Survey does) all the earthquakes. When I feel something here, I go check out what's happening on the website to see what I felt. Many times in the past I'd look out there and see nothing - something in my equilibrium made me think there was an earthquake when there wasn't. So strange.
I've also downloaded an iPhone app called "QuakeWatch" that reports the same information. So last night at dinner I was able to scope things out after we felt an aftershock. That one was a 6.1 and I'm not sure if it was because we'd had a few, but we barely felt it. One guy was walking around when it came and he didn't feel it at all. And that's kind of how it is - you really only notice them if you're sitting quietly or have a glass of water nearby. The epicenters are usually still 150-200 miles away and even when they are closer, the shaking is not as drastic as I might have pictured it to be before coming here. Although Jason's view might be different I'm sure after having been through such a strong quake!
Wednesday was pretty active for aftershocks, mostly in the 4-5.5 range. The all-knowing iPhone tells me there were 14, not counting other random ones that were not aftershocks of the March 11th quake. There was one 6.0 in the middle of the day, but I didn't feel it - I was in a meeting during that time so I must have been busy talking or concentrating on the work at hand and didn't even notice it. But a 5.3 tonight and I felt it because I was just sitting here at the computer watching Glee.
I guess I'm sharing this because when I tweet or facebook that we had an aftershock and it was a 6.0, I remember how dreadful that would have sounded to me a few months ago. But these are still pretty far away from Tokyo and we're built to withstand things like this (the tsunami was a MUCH bigger cause of damage and death than the earthquake was) so I want to say - don't worry!
Coming soon - a blogpost about something non-earthquake related - yay! Stay tuned...
Kanpai!
Jess
5:23 PM |
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