My 1st high rise earthquake experience

[midnight (Darrin)]

Hi All,

Well I'm in Tokyo on secondment and yesterday (14th) at about 3:30pm local time, I experienced quite a thrill when Tokyo was massaged by a mag 6 quake just to the north.

I tell you what, the look on my colleagues' faces was more worrying than the movement. They obviously have far more experience in knowing if things are going to get out of hand and from recent experiences.

I was only on level 12 and crikey did the building move for about 10 seconds! And for the next 10 or so minutes, all I could hear was the faint creaking of the building settling down.

To be honest I was quite excited when it happened but probably not appropriate given what could happen.

No damage done and everyone went back to work within 30 seconds!

Darrin...

PS - I do miss my lonely night quests with my telescope and camera

[Octane (Humayun)]

Woah, glad to hear you're safe and that it didn't trigger any further natural disasters!

Keep safe.

H

[koputai (Jason)]

Exciting stuff Darrin.

We used to live on the 15th floor of our building in Tokyo (near Roppongi Itchome station), and the earthquakes were quite exciting I agree! Anything built after about 1980 has been built to very stringent earthquake standards. Our building was suspended on slings, all 22 floors of it. When an earthquake hit, the shaking would last for 20 or 30 seconds, then the building would sway for a minute or so.

I was actually in Western Honshu near Takayama when the Chuetsu quake hit late in 2004. That caused a lot more disruption.

Cheers,
Jason.

[midnight (Darrin)]

What's worrying the locals here is that they expect a large quake near the city soon.

I found this which seems to align with there thoughts.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/16681136

Certainly worrying.

Our Japan head office is in Toyosu and apparently when a quake hits, you are not allowed to leave the building as it is apparently far more safer than outside.

Thanks H for the kind words and Jason it sounds like you've had the same feeling as me!!

Cheers,
Darrin...

[rogerg (Roger)]

That would be quite something!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

So glad it was just "minor".
It would have been such a buzz though.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

We were in Anaheim for the Hector Mine quake - mag ~7.

The hotel didn't sway for that long, but the transformers in Disneyland exploding from power surges and the pool emptying itself across the car park were quite exciting.

Californians seem to ignore everything up to about mag 5, and only start paying much attention above mag 6. My aunt's house is very close to the Calaveras Fault (a branch of theSan Andreas fault) and gets shaken pretty often.

[midnight (Darrin)]

Originally Posted by rogerg

That would be quite something!

For someone who really hasn't seen this before, it definitely was!!

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

So glad it was just "minor".
It would have been such a buzz though.

Definitely jjj! It's still fresh in my mind!!!

Originally Posted by mithrandir

We were in Anaheim for the Hector Mine quake - mag ~7.

The hotel didn't sway for that long, but the transformers in Disneyland exploding from power surges and the pool emptying itself across the car park were quite exciting.

Now that would have been a sight! Something very rare in Australia.

Cheers,
Darrin...