Niigata earthquake

Hope that you're all OK ... just heard it on French news!

Kira

I felt it this morning (in Tokyo) just after I arrived at work. I thought that it felt a lot like the swaying we got in the last Niigata earthquakes, as opposed to the sharper shaking you get from a smaller, closer earthquake, so I was pretty sure there had been a big one somewhere.

I've been watching the news a lot and it seems that almost all the collapsed buildings were very old traditional wooden buildings- I used to live in a similar building so am glad to be in a much newer one now!

# 1, Where do you live? I'm in Koide (two stations away from Urasa on the Shinkansen line). My town is okay with no damage at all just the initial fierce shaking. Also seeing the images on TV, feel bad many of those traditional houses were destroyed.

my apartment in Yokohama was shaking strong for over a minute - to the point where I felt mild seasickness.

Hey Dharma, I was asking if you were OK on GS, as I know you post there. Big news over here. Looks like the roofs of a lot of older homes collapsed, trains derailed and roads caved in. Some 600 people were injured but miraculously only 6 deaths have been reported. I heard they closed Roppongi Hills as they expected strong aftershocks and didn't want to have people getting stuck in the building.

#4 I was getting pretty queasy as well- it was exactly like being on a boat in choppy water. I was glad I was on the first floor and not any higher.

Thanks guys for all the replies. We're OK over here, but pretty shaken up as it's now 9.15pm and we just had yet ANOTHER one. It was a 4, so a bit smaller thank goodness. But, when it starts shaking you just don't know what's going to happen. They say to be aware that there could be aftershocks up to 5+ or 6- (Japanese scale) for up to a week. We're feeling pretty nerve-y and I don't think i'll ever get back to doing my final marks for my students!

I also sponsor the Habitat for Humanity group at my Uni and the kids were collecting money today in Niigata City. Apparently they gave up and went home after the initial quake, thank goodness. The bad thing was that they forgot to send me the message that they were OK until this evening!

Cocodrilo, thanks for your concern!

Karadavasana you are right about the old buildings. This area of the country was lucky to have missed out on a lot of the bombing in the was, and so there are still many old houses and buildings.

gima17, are you still feeling these tremors?

Here's the link in eigo for the first reports in case anyone is watching out. http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/quake_local_index.html .

Kyosukete everyone!

hi dharma,

Just felt another one 20 mins ago. It's gonna be hard to sleep tonight. Hope the trains are running by tomorrow morning. I heard a large section of the highway from Nagaoka toward Tokyo is closed.

Hi gima17,

This is starting to be a bit annoying. I don't think I'll be able to sleep either. The wind is picking up for the storms that are forecasted for tomorrow. One gust just blew a door shut and I about jumped out of my skin! Guess I'm still pretty jumpy!

Hope you go alright! Try to get some sleep :-)