Quake!

A couple hours ago, I was sitting in the living room doing some work on the computer when I heard a faint “rumbling” sound.  A couple seconds later the apartment started shaking pretty good. Just another earthquake…

I think this one was actually the strongest I have felt since I have been here. It was centered not far from here and the magnitude was a 5.0. It wasn’t strong enough to knock anything over, but the hanging light in the living room was swinging around quite a bit. It probably lasted about 10-12 seconds in total.

The “X” on the map above shows the location of the quake. Tsukuba is located a little to the right of the “X”.  The triangles represent the amount of earth movement on the Japanese scale with 1 being the smallest and 7 being the highest. The most severe areas for this earthquake were a 4 and the Tsukuba area was a 3.

Back home, a quake would really freak people out, but here it’s just another part of the daily routine. As you probably know, Japan is one of the most quake-prone areas in the world.  When I first got here I would be startled during a quake but now I am getting used to it now. I would say on average I probably feel a quake about once or twice a week.

Ah the excitement of living in Japan….