Earthquake

Last week I was in my room doing something ( I don't remember what) when Chi's mom came in and told me that we had just had an earthquake. I didn't even notice it. Chi was with her friend Natsumi in Chiba at a setsumeikai. Apparently everyone noticed this earthquake because they were talking about it quite a bit. I was rather sad because I had been wanting to experience an earthquake, but didn't even notice it. It was a powerful one too; 7.1. Maybe it was too far away.

Two days later Chi and I were sitting on the floor in her room (2nd floor). I was talking to a friend on my computer and Chi was reading a magazine when suddenly everything began to shake. It was mild. I had been wanting to experience an earthquake so I was happy. But... the shaking quickly started getting stronger and stronger. When the furniture in the house started bouncing around and things started falling over, I got scared. I grabbed my computer and tried to run outside. But Chi was hesitant to leave. After about fifteen seconds or so she finally picked up Shokora (her dog) and we headed for the door together.

Being in an earthquake is kind of like being on a ship out at sea during a storm with the sea put in fast forward. It feels like the ship is being tossed about two feet one way, then two feet the other way, back and forth very quickly. You become nauseous and slightly disoriented. It's somewhat difficult to keep your balance. It's like being sea-sick. or should I say earthquake-sick?

Trying to go down the stairs to the front door is the memory that sticks out in my mind the most. I was trying to hurry down the stairs as quickly as I could, but it was surprisingly difficult. Remember in P.E. in elementary school where they would have you spin around a baseball bat until you become dizzy, then have you run a certain distance? Remember how difficult it was to run? Try spinning around the bat and then descending down a flight of stairs instead. That's kind of what it felt like. Except the staircase was moving. Actually, don't try that. You might fall and hurt yourself :p.

Chi and I ran outside to a small parking lot across the street. While waiting for the earthquake to subside, I made a post on my Facebook that we we're in the midst of an earthquake. It stopped soon after that. Chi went back inside and turned on the TV. I didn't want to go back inside because I figured a strong aftershock would be hitting us within a few minutes.

After about five minutes or so I went back inside. Maybe the aftershock wasn't coming. On the TV the news was saying that a 7.9 magnitude Earthquake had struck Miyagi, north of us. While watching the TV I continued posting on my Facebook. Two aftershocks struck. They weren't too bad though, so we stayed inside. About 20 minutes after the initial quake, a big aftershock hit. Again furniture was bouncing and things were falling. We ran outside again. The TV said that this one was a 7.4

The aftershocks continued hitting us about every two minutes or so, for about three hours. Almost nonstop shaking for about three hours. There was one more time that it got bad and we had to run outside again. So we had to run outside a total of three times. After the initial three hours, the frequency of the aftershocks dropped down to about one every 15 minutes.

The aftershocks are still coming about every fifteen minutes, but they are weaker now. I can only feel about one every hour or two. I think it depends a lot on how far away the epicenter is. It changes. About once a day a big aftershock comes that shakes things up quite a bit. But not bad enough to make me run outside. In fact, about an hour ago we had a good sized one. It was strong enough to make the house rattle and make me feel like I'm out at sea, but not bad. It lasted a long time though. Maybe 8 minutes. It seems to have been a 6.1.Most people here are so used to the shaking now that we mostly just ignore it. Like it's just a regular part of everyday life now.

Some interesting facts:
-The earthquake was upgraded to a 9.0. One of the strongest five earthquakes in recorded history.
-This earthquake moved Japan about 8 feet.
-The length of a day has been shortened by about 2ms.
-The tsunami was moving at about 500mph over the ocean.
-Some of the aftershocks are stronger than the actual earthquakes that hit New Zealand and Haiti this year.
-About 150 earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or higher occur anually globally. Over these past few days we've had maybe 50 or so aftershocks of magnitude 6.0 or higher (guessing). A few above 7. Today we've had three above 6.0.
-There's been close to 500 confirmed aftershocks. A majority of which are above 5.0.
-Japan's scientists have developed an earthquake early warning system. Everyone was apparently warned via TV about one minute before the earthquake hit. They also had an eight minute warning about the subsequent Tsunami.
-Many people here have installed earthquake warning applications on their phones. As soon as an earthquake/aftershock hits, their phone sounds an alarm. If the epicenter is far away, you have a few seconds warning. But sometimes the phones buzz after the earthquake/aftershock has already arrived. Anyway, it's fun to watch :).

I wanted to experience one minor earthquake, but ended up experiencing a few big ones and maybe 300 minor ones.

I'll explain the current situation here in my next post