We had another earthquake today. It woke us up sometime between six and six-thirty this morning. Not being a morning person, I don’t recall the exact time but the news reports tell me that it started at 6:11. It didn’t feel as strong or last as long as the one on March 20th.
I’ve been told that the quake was centred around the same area as the one from March 20th, and had a magnitude of 5.7 (update: some places are reporting 5.3). There’s a map here. I tried to go back to sleep, but there were a number of aftershocks that kept interrupting. Under different circumstances I’d have appreciated the full body massage.
Jarrod didn’t want to go to school but we convinced him that it would be better for him to go to than to stay at home while we went to work.
The railways are shut down, and since many of our students take the train as part of their morning commute, a lot of them haven’t made it to school this morning. Right now the teachers are writing down the attendance on the staffroom blackboard. It seems to be a contest to see whose class has the least students. The worst so far, with 17 out of 24 classes reporting, is 19 students absent. The best attended class has only 6 absent. These are from classes of 40 students, give or take a couple.
If the trains start running before 1pm, students will be required to come to school. Right now the head teachers are deciding whether we have enough students to proceed with classes.
8:45am: with all classes reporting, we have a total of 257 students absent out of a total student body of 957. This brings the average class size down to 29 students, a number that’s more in line with what I was used to in Canada.
9:10am: another aftershock. Teachers are on edge.
National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) Bulletin
DATE-(UTC)-TIME LAT LON DEP MAG Q COMMENTS
yy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss deg. deg. km
05/04/20 00:09:45 33.62N 130.31E 25.9 4.7M B KYUSHU, JAPAN
05/04/19 21:44:51 33.49N 130.27E 10.0 4.2M B KYUSHU, JAPAN
05/04/19 21:22:50 33.69N 130.54E 10.0 4.5M B KYUSHU, JAPAN
05/04/19 21:11:27 33.67N 130.18E 12.5 5.5M A KYUSHU, JAPAN
05/03/20 01:53:42 33.85N 129.98E 10.0 6.6M A KYUSHU, JAPAN
05/03/20 01:53:42 33.85N 129.98E 10.0 6.4M A KYUSHU, JAPAN
05/03/20 01:53:41 33.80N 130.07E 10.0 6.6M KYUSHU, JAPAN
http://hanalei.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/menu_bottom.pl?yday=&id=
Here’s the same info as the other post, straight from the source. This page has links and explanations:
Worldwide Earthquake Activity in the Last Seven Days
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/
Lots of great info on Japan and earthquakes here:
Earthquake Information for Japan
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/world/japan/
Best online geology course I’ve ever seen (University level):
Dynamics of The Earth
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/visualgeology/geology101/index.htm
(I’m about halfway through this course. Its designed to be used as a combination lecture/textbook. Anyone know where I can find something similar for Petrology?)
some better earthquake links:
Magnitude 5.5 – KYUSHU, JAPAN
2005 April 19 21:11:27 UTC
Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver
A moderate earthquake occurred at 21:11:27 (UTC) on Tuesday, April 19, 2005. The magnitude 5.5 event has been located in KYUSHU, JAPAN. The hypocentral depth was poorly constrained. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)
Felt Reports At least 58 people injured and 279 buildings damaged in Fukuoka Prefecture. Several homes destroyed on Genkai-jima. Felt (IV) at Sasebo. Felt (III) at Pusan, South Korea. Felt at Beppu, Hiroshima, Isahaya, Iwakuni, Nagasaki, Sasebo, Shimonoseki and Takeo. Also felt at Inch’on, Kwangju, Seoul and Ulsan, South Korea. Several landslides occured in the epicentral area. Recorded (5U JMA) in Fukuoka and Saga; (4 JMA) in Nagasaki; (3 JMA) in Kumamoto and Oita; (2 JMA) in Kagoshima and Miyazaki Prefectures. Recorded (3 JMA) in the Tsu-shima Islands and (2 JMA) on Uku-jima. Recorded (4 JMA) in Yamaguchi; (3 JMA) in Shimane; (2 JMA) in Hiroshima and Hyogo; (1 JMA) in Hyogo, Okayama and Tottori Prefectures, Honshu. Also recorded (3 JMA) in Ehime and (1 JMA) in Kagawa and Kochi Prefectures, Shikoku.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/usxbck.htm
Interesting Reading:
Earthquake Information for Japan
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/world/japan/
Worldwide Earthquake Activity in the Last Seven Days
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/
Really good online geology course (university level):
Dynamics of The Earth
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/visualgeology/geology101/index.htm
This Dynamic Earth-
US Geological Survey book on Plate Tectonics – Fascinating reading!
Online(html) version:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/dynamic.html
Downloadable pdf version:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/dynamic.pdf
Peter, you don’t happen to have any info on earthquake predictions do you? I found a couple of decent articles, notably one at nature.com. Any thoughts?
There’s nothing like getting woken up by a shaking building. We had another aftershock—Japanese seismic intensity of 2—wake us up less than 10 minutes ago. Ugh.