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“ The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G.K. Chesterton

Sunday, 25 March 2007

Earthquake!!

Our first earthquake experience in Japan less than half an hour ago around 09:40am. A pretty major one too. Just having a relaxing morning with my parents (Rob's mum was still in bed) then bang, it hit. The epicentre was only 20kms away from us, and the Richter Scale was measured at 6.9!! Eeek! The scenario during the earthquake: my mum was freaking out and praying out loud to God for safety, I was yelling "Stay calm! Don't panic!" and my dad was hanging onto all the breakables on the dining table. Needless to say, the earthquake woke Rob's mum up.

We're all okay otherwise - the TV fell off its stand and was upside down on the floor, a glass was broken and there were lots of mess on the floor. Still a bit shaky from the experience. Rob's on his way back from New York so he missed it. I wonder if the trains will run tomorrow for us to go on our Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe trip. Just had an aftershock tremor a few minutes ago. There is a tsunami warning out. What an experience for our parents... And for me!


edited to add an update

The map showing the seismic intensity of today's earthquake. The red bit is Ishikawa prefecture, and the Noto (the northern part of the peninsula) got the worst brunt of the earthquake. One casualty in Wajima (40mins drive west from here) and about 40 160 injured.

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6 comments:

  1. myrial_pearls25 March 2007 at 16:39

    Wow ... what a scary experience! Glad to hear that you guys are all safe and sound!

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  2. hunter00626 March 2007 at 05:58

    Glad to hear you're ok. I actually wished that there would be about a 4 on the Richter scale while we were in Japan - it would have added to the experience without it getting too interesting. Although, admittedly if it happened while I was sleeping, I probably wouldn't have noticed (I'm a bit of a sound sleeper).

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  3. Anonymous26 March 2007 at 20:46

    glad u guys are safe!
    we felt a little tremor when we were in osaka the other time....
    we were all just sitting ard then felt a slight tremor...thought it was a train passsing by, but later found out it was an earthquake!
    so can't imagine a richter scale of 6!! scary...
    shona

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  4. expatgourmand30 March 2007 at 19:00

    Thanks :) Pretty scary experience for my parents and Rob's mum.. with every aftershocks that came after, I was filled with dread that it was gonna be as bad as the first..

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  5. expatgourmand30 March 2007 at 19:02

    One of the aftershocks was a 4, and personally it was a bit too shaky for my liking :P An earthquake is not something I would want anyone to experience..

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  6. expatgourmand30 March 2007 at 19:05

    We were driving down to Kanazawa to catch our train to Osaka the next day, and we actually felt the tremor of an aftershock while in the car (we were waiting at the lights) - I thought someone was thumping their feet to the beat of the music in the car.

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