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I've read a few threads on here about earthquakes, but can't really imagine what it really feels like (apart from "scary"!)

 

I'm interested to know how you would describe the experience. Go on, put it into words to help me understand. Onegai shimasu!

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The actual shaking itself is as you would imagine - envisage a building shaking around and bucking up and down, or just swaying gently from side to side. That's actually not too bad as long as nothing is falling on top of you.

 

The uncertainty is the worst part. Is it going to get worse? In the next few seconds? In the next week? Is it, in fact, going to kill you? By crushing? By fire? By a combination of both? These are things that you ponder while it's happening. And there's not a thing you can do about it.

 

Big typhoon on the way now too. In for some more house shaking I should think.

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Well I have the experience now I'm sorry to say.

 

How did I feel? Similar to what has been said above, I was like frozen to the spot just hanging on to the freezer unable to move. It seemed to go on forever, but it was 15 seconds or so. Well the first one anyway.

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Have you got a lot of damage, or is everything pretty much OK?

 

We didn't have much to break in Osaka and had no damage, but we've got heavy bookcases and computers and stuff now so a big quake might be expensive.

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Anybody else have that persistent rolling or swaying feeling, even when there is no aftershock? Like you're imagining another earthquake?

 

Both my wife and I noticed this. Still happening a lot today!

 

(Naw, they ain't aftershocks either! The things that swing or visibly move during even a tiny aftershock are dead still during these false earthquake attacks!)

 

EARTHQUAKE FLASHBACKS!!

 

confused.gif

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badmigraine , yeah, I know what you mean...sometimes just sitting still, and I start to get the feeling like, 'was that a tremor ?'. Still, if nothing's banging, it's a fair bet it wasn't anything.

 

During the strong quakes I've been in (not just last weekends), one thing that runs through my mind is, 'should I try and get out of the apartment ?'. I've always kind of lived up high in Tokyo, and now I have a lot of floors above me here. I have a building background, but still, I have no idea how strong a quake must be before 'my' building is going to fall apart. Besides that, I don't really want to be the crazy, scared gaijin that runs out first into the street...........so far, I've always stayed put, although I have been know to gather my passport, money, etc

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Stripper, I know what you mean. You wonder if it's better to run out into the street and be sliced in half by a falling sheet of glass, brained by a cinderblock, or maybe better to stay inside and be crushed like an ant.

 

In the San Fran earthquake some years back, when they finally pried apart the two fallen layers of the expressway that had been on trestles, they found the cars that had been there--and the people in them--had been crushed down to a quarter inch in height.

 

At least it must have been quick.

 

I was living in LA during their big quake in '94. I remember driving home to Westwood from my g/f's place in Venice Beach the morning after. There were buildings with the entire facade ripped away...it was like looking into a dollhouse...you could see all the furniture and windows on the other side... There were houses bent and squatting at funhouse angles...piles of bricks and glass in the streets...signs swinging in the wind like in a western or noir film...

 

Anyway, the TV warned of big aftershocks, and I didn't want to be caught nude or be found picking through rubble in my pajamas, so I slept that first couple of aftermath nights in my leather bike pants with crash guard knees and my steel-toed work boots, and kept my Hein Gericke armored jacket and long gauntlet leather gloves by my bedside.

 

If I had to go, was going to go out Mad Max style.

 

\:D

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man, I feel for you guys in Niigata, very scary stuff... first the quake, and now rain...

 

I was in Tokyo during the Kobe quake, and before that, was an undergrad at Santa Cruz during the '89 San Francisco quake. Some things I still remember from the latter are: brick buildings (or anything made from brick) completely smashed, torn up roads, busted plumbing and a small lake in my apartment, waiting in line at the supermarket and wondering whether to get water or beer...

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I get the 'was that an earthquake?' feeling too. I think my sensors are always switched on now, and when there is an actual earthquake however small, I'm aware of it, even when I'm asleep.

 

Japan needs to pull it's damn finger out with these earthquakes and make some sensible preparations for dealing with them. How about storing dried food, foil blankets, water filters and composting toilets in a few schools and gyms? How hard can it be?

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You are right O11.

Watching the news there are still villages that HANE NOT received any food, water or any aid yet. (those villages have written SOS's on the roads.) Japan has an army, heli's and food so whats the problem.

I could understand that in a 3rd world country there might be a shortage but here? They aren't even providing milk for babies.

I just hope I never get caught in something like this because I just don't have the confidence that the government could put together a decent emergency in place.( and then gaijin wouldn't receive and aid anyway)

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