My first post: Magnitude 7 Earthquake in Japan Saturday Morning
I woke up this morning at around 8:45am to my bed and apartment shaking. I have never experienced an earthquake before, having grown up in South Florida, but I quickly realized what was occurring. The shaking was definitely noticeable, but not enough to make me afraid. My apartment, by the way, is located in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture (north of Tokyo). I turned on the tv to find that it was actually a pretty large earthquake with its epicenter in the Iwate Prefecture, Sendai being the closest large city (pop. > 1million).Almost all reports say the earthquake measured a 7 in magnitude, but it's unclear if this means the Richter scale or the Japanese shindo scale. Maybe both are equal? The Richter scale is a measure of the energy at the epicenter, and ranges from 1-10, while the shindo scale is a measure of how the earthquake affects a certain region, so it varies from city to city, but ranges from 1-7. (Japan earthquakes and the shindo scale, according to Japan-Guide). The Japan Meteorological Agency tracks earthquakes on a map and shows the epicenter with magnitude 7, the largest on the shindo scale.More than 2 hours later, the quake is still all over the news, and more details are surfacing, such as what appears to be a massive landslide, killing at least one person.Other reports include shattered windows harming children in a day care, power outages, shut down nuclear plants, delayed flights, and many scared people. All trains were temporarily stopped. Fortunately, the quake was in the center of Honshu Island, so there was no tsunami warning issued.
