Earthquake, anyone else feel it last night?

[devicenull]

First time I have been in a quake that I actually noticed on any real scale.

Could feel the force moving up, originally felt like a powerful explosion... all in all,

[Charles]

You realize there's a quake several times a day, somewhere in Japan, right?

[kurohinge1]

You realize there's a quake several times a day, somewhere in Japan, right?

In fact, seismic activity in Japan is almost as frequent as Charles' whinges about Australia and/or Aussies.


Almost.

[gomichild]

First time I have been in a quake that I actually noticed on any real scale.

Could feel the force moving up, originally felt like a powerful explosion... all in all,

Unfortunately baby it seems the Earth moved only for you...

[devicenull]

Eh, this was a 4.4 according to the news and felt in Gifu and Aichi. They shut off our gas, which meant no heat for the night

[yakinoumiso]

I sat through one last Thursday in Hakodate. It wasn't so big, but it was interesting being at the top of a 17 floor building for one. I thought there was an even stronger aftershock that knocked me off my stool, but it turned out it was just the combined effect of a few martinis...

Devicenull, weren't you in Aichi-ken this summer when those relatively big quakes hit in the Pacific off of Mie and Aichi? We could feel those all the way up here in Izu, and it got a rather long thread at the time...

[yakinoumiso]

Eh, this was a 4.4 according to the news and felt in Gifu and Aichi. They shut off our gas, which meant no heat for the night

Really...for a 4.4? That's not strong enough to knock over an average obaasan. That's too bad, it's cold out there tonight.

[devicenull]

I sat through one last Thursday in Hakodate. It wasn't so big, but it was interesting being at the top of a 17 floor building for one. I thought there was an even stronger aftershock that knocked me off my stool, but it turned out it was just the combined effect of a few martinis...

Devicenull, weren't you in Aichi-ken this summer when those relatively big quakes hit in the Pacific off of Mie and Aichi? We could feel those all the way up here in Izu, and it got a rather long thread at the time...

Nope, this summer I was in Beijing, going back there on the 15th

[FG Lurker]

Devicenull, weren't you in Aichi-ken this summer when those relatively big quakes hit in the Pacific off of Mie and Aichi? We could feel those all the way up here in Izu, and it got a rather long thread at the time...

I felt those here in Osaka... Knocked a few books of one of my shelves and scared the shit out of me.

Nothing like the Hanshin Quake of course, which I thankfully missed in my 20 month absence from Japan. A good friend was here for it though, this is what he wrote:

Yes, I was here during the Great Hanshin Earthquake in January 1995. It was singularly the most frightening event of my life. I was living on the 8th floor of a 10 story building at the time. I was up reading a Computer Shopper Magazine as the room started to slowly oscillate. I had been through several quakes before and was only moderately alarmed. The suddenness of it was the reason for any fear that existed at that point. Then it was as if someone just reached out and turned up the volume on the quake machine. Everything began to jerk more violently than any quake I had ever felt before. I jumped up off of my couch and stood in the doorway, as I had heard many times before. Again instead of dampening out to nothing the intensity was turned up another notch. I remember thinking " I am going to die. The top of this building will surely sheer right of and I will plummet to the ground!" In fact, at the time, I was so scared that I was not even able to scream or make any sound. Before any after shocks could come, I raced down 8 flights of stairs to the street, where I met a girl from the 6th floor. She uttered one single word. "Kowaii." - Scary.

When I came back in June 1995 I went back to have a look around the area I used to live, right on the border of Hyogo and Osaka. The building I used to live in was fine, but two buildings on the same very short side-street were gone. Just gravel in their place. Wandering around the neighborhood showed a lot of other missing structures as well.

Hope that I never have to go through a quake that big.