Quake 2

~Never a dull moment here in Japan! Just a few minutes ago, a moderately strong earthquake struck the Niigata region, centered right on the town that I live in. As usual, I live up to my reputation as a walking disaster magnet.

^Specifically, it occurred at 6:59 pm local time, and had a magnitude of 4.6 on the Richter scale. It lasted around ten seconds and shook things around in my apartment, but not seriously--not strong enough to knock things off of the shelves, for example. There was a brief tsunami warning for the coastal regions, which was rescinded shortly after it was announced. All of this taken together gave the earthquake a rank of 4 on the JMA Seismic Intensity Scale.

I was quite impressed by news coverage of the earthquake. As I said, it happened at 6:59 pm, and the 7 o'clock news covered it, complete with maps and seismic readouts, not three minutes later. That's some fast rescheduling of the night's news lineup! If any more details become available, I'll post them here. ~Oyasumi.