Earthquake

[Jens]

Just had a pretty interesting experience. Just after noon, we had a pretty long earthquake. It sort of started softly but then got bigger, and the ground was shaking for about a minute I'd say. It wasn't all that big, but big enough that I could see the building across the street swaying.

Anyway, what's interesting is that the quake itself wasn't all that big, 6.9, and it was really far away from where we are. It was I guess a hundred km south or something. But the areas affected were all directly north of it. Other parts of Japan that are actually closer to the epicenter weren't affected. I guess maybe the fault runs north-south.

[Jens]

It was I guess a hundred km south or something.

So much for my guessing abilities. I just saw a news story on the Internet and it said 800 km. That's a long way away.

[Strange]

The oddest experience I had was when I was living in Italy. I was in the office one morning and felt that peculiar vertical "bump", I leapt out of my chair and yelled "earthquake", only to see everyone else looking at me rather strangely.... I sat down and got on with my work. When I got home (this was before the Web) there was a news report on TV of a big earthquake in Greece at about that time (similar kind of distance, I guess ~800km).

[Gillianren]

Actually, a 6.9 isn't exactly small.