The every day disaster movie which is Japan

[tutenkhamunsleeping]

It was indeed, Steve.

It's been a lot quieter since you left

[Trainfish]

Around 1996 my now ex-girlfriend said she felt the earth move 1 night. As I was working abroad at the time and there hadn't been any reports of earthquakes at home either I told her it was probably best that she moved out with him 

[Papyrus]

Thanks for those (I think...!)

I don't understand why things aren't more firmly fixed - for instance, why aren't shelves screwed to the walls? All right, stuff will still fall off, but at least the whole thing won't fall down. And as for reptiles and water tanks. Eeeeeek! 

There is actually a fault line just at the back of our house, but I don't think it has moved much in the last 100 million years...

Cheers,

Chris

[emjaybee]

Thanks for those (I think...!)

I don't understand why things aren't more firmly fixed - for instance, why aren't shelves screwed to the walls? All right, stuff will still fall off, but at least the whole thing won't fall down. And as for reptiles and water tanks. Eeeeeek! 

There is actually a fault line just at the back of our house, but I don't think it has moved much in the last 100 million years...

Cheers,

Chris

There's a fault at our house too...

...apparently it's always mine.

[acko22]

I have experienced one earthquake in my life and yeah rather not have a repeat!

I was on some post exercise down time in San Francisco which revolved around sampling much of the night culture..... but less about that, I was up after and eventful night and had gone to get a morning coffee to wake myself from the dead and while sat outside the cafe an experience I had never felt in my life hit me (no not booze related ) and it was an earthquake in my now complete bewildered and befuddled state one of the locals dragged me into a doorway.

After it all calmed down the local decided I needed telling off and all I could ask was what the "F*** was that?" on hearing my confused comment he informed me it was an earthquake, but just a small one, my response been "Could have f***ing fooled me!" since then I have managed to avoid earthquake areas I generally prefer my ground more settled and less shaky! 

[railsquid]

Enjoying these tales of these cute little UK earthquakes

I was on the ground floor at school around 1990 when one apparently occurred, but didn't feel anything.

Thanks for those (I think...!)

I don't understand why things aren't more firmly fixed - for instance, why aren't shelves screwed to the walls? All right, stuff will still fall off, but at least the whole thing won't fall down. And as for reptiles and water tanks. Eeeeeek! 

I imagine a lot of what you saw will be in rented accommodation, which pretty much rules out making holes of any kind in the walls.

Which reminds me, the scenes of devastation which greeted me when arriving back at my apartment of the time after the 2011 quake:


P1040859 by Rail Squid, on Flickr


P1040860 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

The only actual damage was to a cheap bowl, which somehow leapt out of the sink onto the floor.

I did have a wall full of free-standing IKEA "Ivar" shelving there as well, I was fully expecting to find it fallen over, but it was still standing; you could tell which direction the earthquake was coming from by the way the books on them had shifted about.

Was a long day, after walking home 3+ hours from the office and tidying up the mess, went back out to pick up Mrs. Raildsquid (she wasn't Mrs then though) from her trek across Tokyo, which involved another long walk, and we spent a rather sleepless night being woken up by earthquake alerts and the constant swaying of the building, which felt like being on a ship. Took about a month for the aftershocks to die away, and let's not even mention the nukes.

The current Chez Railsquid was selected in part for the location's general stability and excellent drainage (something else very important in Japan because of rain, and also because you don't want to find yourself living with ground liquefication).

Animation of all quakes in Japan since March 11th, 2011: https://www.japanquakemap.com/

[Alcazar]

I live in SW Germany in a so-called Zone 3 risk area - that means that houses etc. have to be built to withstand earthquakes - although we have had nothing like to ones in Japan since 1356, when Basel was destroyed (6.6 on the Richter scale). The strongest I've been through was just over 4 - all the glasses in the china cabinet shook - but by the time I started thinking about sheltering under the door frame, it was over. Most of those I have experienced were tremors slightly over 3, sometimes there is just a loud bang and a jolt. Anything under 3 you don't really notice.

Usually the ones you notice are few and far between, but back in 2006 we were having one every week. This was the result of a geothermal project (with fracking) just over the border in Basel - it was quickly stopped. Over the last couple of years they have been trying the same idea in Strasbourg, with the same result. This was stopped last December.

Peter

[railsquid]

This is NHK, the BBC of Japan, from 11:08:

Just some blah blah entertainment program, interrupted by the earthquake alert, which is a sound you really don't wan't to hear, especially when it's followed by a second alert expanding the scope of the first (the red X is the likely epicentre, and the yellow regions are those at risk of severe shaking).

Something I learnt today is that the second alert expanding the potentially affected area is a relatively new thing. The alert system was originally based on extrapolating from the initial data generated by sensors close to the epicenter when an earthquake happens, with the big quake in 2011 that resulted in an alert being generated for the initially affected areas in northeast Japan, but not for the surrounding areas such as Tokyo, which were also quite badly shaken. Apparently the improved system extrapolates data as the quake passes throught the initially affected areas to predict whether it will affect a wider region, which seems to have worked quite well this time.

Bonus video - same as the above in 2011, complete with tsunami alert about 3 minutes in:

[railsquid]

This evening, Spongebob was rudely interrupted by an M7.2 earthquake alert and subsequent tsunami warning.



Not quite as intense in Tokyo as the one a few weeks back.

[JonHarbour]

When my wife and I visited Colombia in 2008 to visit my brother, we experienced a 4.3 earthquake whilst staying at his backpacker's hostel. It was the weirdest sensation I have ever experienced, but I couldn't resist asking the Missus if the earth moved for her too!

I also got bitten by two dogs whilst there, one of which was called 'Godzilla', so I couldn't help pondering the fact that when I was posted for a brief work stint in Tokyo a couple of years later I was probably the only person in the city who could genuinely say they survived a Godzilla attack!

[railsquid]

When my wife and I visited Colombia in 2008 to visit my brother, we experienced a 4.3 earthquake whilst staying at his backpacker's hostel. It was the weirdest sensation I have ever experienced, but I couldn't resist asking the Missus if the earth moved for her too!

The fun thing is (having experienced hundreds of the things) is that there are many different kinds of earthquake, ranging from the "short sharp shock" where the epicentre is in the same general postcode district and it feels like a giant hammer is hitting the underside of the house, to a very slow sideways wave motion (I was sitting at home once and felt a very slight slow shaking, and thought to myself "Squiddy, that's a biiiiig earthquake a looooong way away" and looked it up and it was an M8-something up near the Kamchatka Peninsula).

[railsquid]

To quote myself from another thread:

(very important in Japan as there is lots of steep scenery engaged in an aeon-spanning attempt to slide inexorably down the gravity well)

Here's some scenery doing just that earlier today:

[Bealman]

Yes, just saw the tail end of that on the news this evening.

Horrendous! Is the there a deaths and casualties announcement?

I could see people in the path of it! Awful!

[Trainfish]

Fair play to the firemen, they can certainly run when they need to 

The telegraph pole looked a little overscale though 

[railsquid]

Yes, just saw the tail end of that on the news this evening.

Horrendous! Is the there a deaths and casualties announcement?

About 20 people thought to be missing.

This is why Chez Railsquid is on nice flat well-drained ground...