Quaking in our boots
There were two big earthquakes here tonight . The first, around 19:00 stopped trains and scared a lot of people. Apparently it caused some injuries in Kyoto. I was waiting for a friend at Big Man near Hankyu Umeda station whilst talking to a different friend on the phone. The phone-friend panicked and hung up (she was on the fifth floor of a building in Osaka) and while I could feel the floor moving (the sensation is sort of like standing on a large boat that is rocking ever so slightly) I wasn’t sure how big it was. The second happened about 5 hours later at midnight, the train I was riding at the time suddenly slowed down to a crawl, while the train conductor explained there had been an earthquake.
The second was actually the larger of the two (I think it was 7.3 on the Richter scale) and by this time I was a little concerned as to what state my apartment would be in. Everything was OK- a few things had shifted slightly, but that was all.
I am glad I wasn’t home: earthquakes make me pretty nervous and I think I probably would have started freaking out. It’s times like this I am glad I live in a new reinforced concrete building.
I am interested to know what happened (if anything) to Kansai Airport- being stuck in the middle of Osaka Bay not far from the epicentre can’t have been pleasant. Tsunami of up to one metre were also caused by the ‘quakes- and again, I am not sure where they struck and if any damage was caused. September has been pretty exciting so far, what with the huge Typhoon Number 16 passing through last week, and now this.
Typhoon Number 18 is also rapidly approaching.
Batten down the hatches.