First Earthquake

I just experienced my first earthquake. "In Japan?" my supervisor asked me. "No," I replied, "my first earthquake ever."

For the record, everyone and everything is fine where I am. I'm at school so have not been able to investigate my apartment. Nothing was damaged at work, so I'm hoping that's the case for home as well.

I was sitting at my desk studying Japanese when I felt dizzy, and felt my chair roll backwards. I thought it was just my body, tired from concentrating. But then my supervisor made a noise and I realized she felt it, too. It was like being on a lopsided merry-go-round, with the ground swaying back and forth in a loopy, asymmetrical circle. Pause. More swaying. Pause. More swaying, longer and slower this time. The earthquake occured many miles north of where I am, and evidently it was large (6.8 at the source, according to BBC). We had the aftershocks, which my supervisor said were much slower than usual.

At the Kakegawa orientation, one topic we covered was earthquake safety. Of course it's good to be prepared, but that session left us all shaking waaay before any of the earth's plates began to shift. Basically, they said there is a large earthquake near Mt. Fuji every 130-150 years, and every time it gets worse. The last earthquake was 151 years ago.

When I was cleaning out my apartment, I revamped my earthquake kit and got extra bottles of water. Glad that is taken care of, at least.

Hope all is well where you are.