NationStates Jolt Archive

Earthquake jolts Niigata, Nagano and other areas

A powerful earthquake jolted Niigata and Nagano prefectures as well as other areas in central and eastern Honshu Monday morning, the Meteorological Agency said.

The temblor that struck at 10:13 a.m. registered upper 6 on the 7-point Japanese intensity scale in the Chuetsu region of central Niigata Prefecture and northern Nagano Prefecture, and lower 6 in Joetsu, Nagano Prefecture.

The earthquake also measured upper 5 in the Kaetsu region of Niigata Prefecture and lower 5 in the Noto district of Ishikawa Prefecture.

The focus of the earthquake, which is estimated at 6.6 on the open-ended Richter scale, was located about 10 kilometers below the seabed off Niigata Prefecture. (Mainichi)
July 16, 2007

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070716p2a00m0na001000c.html
Map and more detailed info (http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/16101800353.html)

It's pretty far from me, so I'm OK, but I used to live up there. NERVUN lives a lot closer though.

Oh my god! How terrible!

There are no reports of injuries or deaths yet. This might be a happy fun quake.

well at least it hasn't turned into the big one...yet

There are no reports of injuries or deaths yet. This might be a happy fun quake.

I approve of this turn of phrase. :p

Oh my god! How terrible!

Could have been a lot worse. The big quake there in '64 killed over 200 people.

There are no reports of injuries or deaths yet. This might be a happy fun quake.

Indeed.

Japan is just a volcanic outcrop of islands, which is scary for the people who have to live there.

Japan is just a volcanic outcrop of islands, which is scary for the people who have to live there.

They've been living there for thousands of years. I think they can handle it.

Anyway, my sympathies towards anyone injured and/or killed by this earthquake. I'm going to be glad when we've got the technology to control this stuff, or at least predict it in time to minimize injuries and fatalities.

There are no reports of injuries or deaths yet. This might be a happy fun quake.

2 dead and 260 injured as of the latest reports on NHK television. There's a fair bit of damage, including a minor fire at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/16/content_6382679.htm
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707160217.html

They've been living there for thousands of years. I think they can handle it.

Anyway, my sympathies towards anyone injured and/or killed by this earthquake. I'm going to be glad when we've got the technology to control this stuff, or at least predict it in time to minimize injuries and fatalities.

At least the people in Japan are prepared, build their buildings to cope and not shortcut to save money like they do in Turkey.

Japan is like the worst place for natural disasters, considering their population density.

And Tsunamis ... too. Earthquakes and Tsunamis like each other's company.

Japan is like the worst place for natural disasters, considering their population density.

Glad no one was killed, if that's the final word on it. :(

Glad no one was killed, if that's the final word on it. :(

It's all down to where it strikes I guess. Some days they have a lucky one, and some days it's in a really bad spot.

It's all down to where it strikes I guess. Some days they have a lucky one, and some days it's in a really bad spot.

I heard their engineers over there are pretty cutting-edge with the shock-resistant buildings, even more so than our west-coast cities. Which is pretty fortunate, from the looks of it. :p

At least the people in Japan are prepared, build their buildings to cope and not shortcut to save money like they do in Turkey.
Yeah. I reckon that if I had to go through an earthquake, Japan would be the place to do it.

Nonetheless, the BBC says three people died, 150 were injured and there was a fire at a nuclear power plant: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6900156.stm

So maybe I'll just do without an earthquake entirely.

I heard their engineers over there are pretty cutting-edge with the shock-resistant buildings, even more so than our west-coast cities. Which is pretty fortunate, from the looks of it. :p

*snorts*

Eh... Let's put it this way. The West Coast is not the bastion of good engineering that you beleive it to be. Unless a building was built within the last 10 to 15 years (which, most buildings here were not), it's going to be flat after a big one (which, up here, in the northern part, we are really, really due for at this point).

BTW, the latest reports of the net say 4 dead and 320+ injured.

At least the people in Japan are prepared, build their buildings to cope and not shortcut to save money like they do in Turkey.

Actually, Japan is a mixed bag on that.

On paper, yes the Japanese are well prepared, but in my experience this is one of many cases where the official line just doesn't match the reality. The

I directly experienced the Great Hanshin Earthquake (AKA the Kobe Earthquake) in 1995, and I distinctly remember how unprepared the people were, the paralisis of both local and national government, and the damage caused by shoddy construction.

I highly reccommend Peter Hadfield's book Sixty seconds that will change the world (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0804817901?tag=worldcat-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0804817901&adid=19B2BR79W3NMGAXBR96M&) on the disasterous consequences of the really big one - the next Great Kanto Earthquake.

His comments on the current situation:

Peter Hadfield is a British journalist and former geologist who has written a book about Tokyo's vulnerability to earthquakes, "The Sixty Seconds That Will Change the World". He says the Japanese have the technology to build earthquake-proof structures, but this hasn't been put into practice.

PETER HADFIELD: There are a lot of construction companies involved in building, and what happens is you get sub-contractors from the main contractors, and they sub-contract, and they sub-contract, and so the amount of money that's actually being used in building is being filtered down to the lowest common denominator, and these companies at the bottom, in order to save a buck or two, they are scrimping and saving. There's a word here "tanuki" [phonetic], which basically means shoddy construction work, sloppiness, and that's what a lot - the way a lot of buildings are built here.

PETER McCUTCHEON: That very problem was recognised in Kobe, when even recently constructed structures collapsed in the earthquake. Has Japan learnt the lesson of Kobe?

PETER HADFIELD: It's a good question. But in fact Japan need not have learned anything from Kobe. The Japanese engineers knew, before Kobe, how to build and how structures should be made. So it wasn't that they didn't know, it wasn't that they've learned anything, it was a political lesson, it was people waking up and saying "Whoa, hang on; our technology, we thought, could survive this, and obviously it can't".

PETER McCUTCHEON: So you're saying there's a lot of shoddy construction work here in Japan, and for that reason a place like Tokyo could be vulnerable to a big earthquake, but you're also arguing that Japan is slowly learning it's lesson and perhaps things might not be on a scale as bad in Tokyo as it was in Kobe a few years ago.

PETER HADFIELD: They are, certainly, retrofitting; which means that they're trying to shore up buildings which have been improperly built, or not quite up to scratch, in order to withstand the earthquake. But it's a massive undertaking, because we're talking about several million buildings here, and the only ones they're really working on are the public buildings - schools and the hospitals and so on.

It's a problem that, yeah, they have woken up to it, but it's so widespread, it is going to be impossible to retrofit everything before the next earthquake happens.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s56793.htm

Here's more on the looming disaster that will be the next Great Kanto Earthquake:
Tokyo stands directly on top of one of the world's most active fault lines. A major earthquake has struck Tokyo about every 75 years for the past several centuries. The next catastrophic earthquake may have global implications--and could be even worse than the 1923 one. Tokyo was an economic backwater in 1923. The total population in the Tokyo/ Yokohama region is now about 25 million people--six times the size of the 1923 number. Now it is the centre of the world's second largest economy, with government, stock market and major businesses all based there. It may be in recession but it is still ticking over. Japan is a far more important global trading partner than it was in 1923.

Additionally, if a major earthquake struck, the Japanese may have to sell their foreign stocks and shares to pay for the rebuilding. This fire sale would set off tremors in the foreign stock exchanges and could trigger a global recession (particularly given the fragile nature of the global economy).

An earthquake would also be a blow for insurance companies in Japan and overseas. The insurance industry is already being hit hard by wars and environmental disasters; an earthquake would add to its woes (and our insurance premiums). It seems that many Japanese insurance companies are too wise to offer insurance cover for earthquakes and so the cover is often carried by American and British companies.

It would be comforting to think that Japan is now better prepared for a major earthquake than it was eighty years ago. Certainly the highly flammable wood and brick buildings (that were flexible enough to cope with small earth tremors) have been replaced by tougher buildings, and there are elaborate fire precautions. But modern cities now also contain more flammable products and facilities (such as oil refineries).

Much of Tokyo's old reclaimed land remains vulnerable to liquefaction. This is a process where shaking ground causes the soil to sink and the water content to rise to the top (as happens when a person pats sand on the beach). Some of Tokyo's major industrial plants containing hazardous materials are constructed on such land.

Two million of Tokyo's 2.6 million structures, including mid-rise concrete apartments, were erected before the earthquake standards for new construction were instituted in 1974 and strengthened in 1981. Many of these were built in the rebuilding frenzy immediately after the Second World War as rural residents streamed into the city looking for work. Most of these buildings would collapse in a 7.2 magnitude earthquake (the size of the earthquake for which the city plans each year). City officials in Tokyo themselves expect a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Tokyo to kill more than 7,000 people, injure 160,000, leave at least 2.3 million people homeless and destroy more than 500,000 buildings.

Additionally despite all the attention to earthquake prediction and precautions, the Japanese still have made little progress. This was shown in the loss of about 6,000 lives and US$120 billion in damage at the Kobe/Hanshin earthquake on 17 January 1995 (which had a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale). This was Japan's worst earthquake since 1923. No amount of training could prepare the rescue teams for the chaos they had to contend with, such as wrecked houses, blocked roads, traffic congestion and a crippled water system.

Meanwhile, there has been a social change since 1923. Japan has evolved a welfare state, which means that citizens expect official government institutions to do the rescue work. The Kobe tragedy showed that people did little to help themselves and the people around them. In Japan's hierarchical society, many people think it is improper to assume jobs to which they not been assigned. They have also grown more affluent, more isolated and living in apartments where they do not know their neighbours and so feel reluctant to help them.

September 1 is now marked each year in Japan as Disaster Prevention Day. Japan is the only country in the world to maintain a major research programme in earthquake prediction. Most Japanese now know the basic drill. Falling objects, toppling furniture and panic present the greatest dangers during an earthquake. People are warned to protect themselves by getting under a table or doorframe. They should not run outside and should try to remain as calm as possible. For people trapped in the street, there is the advice that they should try to find protection from glass and other objects that may fall from surrounding buildings.

The world has an interest in Japan's ability to withstand earthquakes. Another Tokyo earthquake would be felt even more keenly than the last one and its effects would ripple throughout the whole world.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-133016639.html

Glad no one was killed, if that's the final word on it. :(

Apparently, you missed post #9...

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12878714&postcount=9

:(

EDIT: And now there's the post right before this one. :( :(

Glad no one was killed, if that's the final word on it. :(

Err... http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12878714&postcount=9

I heard their engineers over there are pretty cutting-edge with the shock-resistant buildings, even more so than our west-coast cities. Which is pretty fortunate, from the looks of it. :p

Well, yes the architects and engineers can build buildings designed to survive strong quakes - when they actually stick to code. Unfortunately they don't, as can be seen in the latest scandal of this sort:

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2005/11/30/japan-construction-051130.html

Furthermore, corrupt construction firms degrade the problems further, as was seen in the Great Hanshin Earthquake or in the latest round of the current elevator construction scandals (http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707140101.html).

Finally, a lot of buildings were simply built before codes were tightened up.

This also ignores the increased chances of soil liquification on reclaimed land, of which Japan has a lot.

Yeah. I reckon that if I had to go through an earthquake, Japan would be the place to do it.

So maybe I'll just do without an earthquake entirely.

Second suggestion's better. ;)

*snorts*

Eh... Let's put it this way. The West Coast is not the bastion of good engineering that you beleive it to be. Unless a building was built within the last 10 to 15 years (which, most buildings here were not), it's going to be flat after a big one (which, up here, in the northern part, we are really, really due for at this point).

Exactly so. Japan is no different, and maybe even worse. And Tokyo's also way overdue as well.

I must admit, I DO like the fact that I don't really have to worry about earthquakes and tsunamis... at least with most of the other natural disasters we get warnings...

It's pretty far from me, so I'm OK, but I used to live up there. NERVUN lives a lot closer though.
Oddly enough, while the city next to me (Matsumoto) shook and reported it as a 4 on the Japanese scale, my little town didn't feel anything and only registered a 2.

I did get to feel an aftershock this afternoon while at the movies. Things seem to be calming down a bit, hopefully.

Oddly enough, while the city next to me (Matsumoto) shook and reported it as a 4 on the Japanese scale, my little town didn't feel anything and only registered a 2.

I did get to feel an aftershock this afternoon while at the movies. Things seem to be calming down a bit, hopefully.

Thanks for checking in and good to hear you're OK. :D

And we just now had a shake here in Osaka.

Minor, or middling? I'll assume that if it were serious you would be away from your computer.

And we just now had a shake here in Osaka.

Small one centered in Nara. Here, it was a 2 on the JMA scale.

Earthquake Information (Earthquake Information)
Issued at 17:27 JST 16 Jul 2007

Occurred at (JST) Latitude
(degree) Longitude
(degree) Depth Magnitude Region Name
17:24 JST 16 Jul 2007 34.3N 135.9E 50km 4.7 NARA KEN

No Tsunami threat by this earthquake.
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/ (note: that site updates)

Apparently, you missed post #9...

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12878714&postcount=9

:(

EDIT: And now there's the post right before this one. :( :(

That's a shame. I thought at the time that they hadn't found anyone. But it could've been worse, I'm sure.

That's a shame. I thought at the time that they hadn't found anyone. But it could've been worse, I'm sure.

Indeed, indeed. The last good sized one there was in 2004 and 39 people died. The Great Kanto Earthquake had a toll of 100-140,000.

2 dead and 260 injured as of the latest reports on NHK television. There's a fair bit of damage, including a minor fire at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-07/16/content_6382679.htm
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707160217.html

That is neither happy nor fun. :(

That is neither happy nor fun. :(

No indeed.

It's 5 and 400+ now according to NHK.

no wonder they keep looking to make their building safer

Latest news is 6 dead and 700+ injured. And this is a few days after a large typhoon passed though.

Japan: Nature's punching bag.

Last report I saw off NHK was 8 dead and 900+ injured. And some right nasty aftershocks.

No indeed.

It's 5 and 400+ now according to NHK.

This is yet another example of why I should be Almighty. Not every disaster has to kill people. Destroy property? Maybe. Injure? If necessary. But it's hard to enjoy total chaos when some little girl is nearby crying over the corpse of her mother.

Why does Mother Nature hate Japan? :(

Why does Mother Nature hate Japan? :(

Because... They invented hentai? :D

Oddly enough, while the city next to me (Matsumoto) shook and reported it as a 4 on the Japanese scale, my little town didn't feel anything and only registered a 2.

I did get to feel an aftershock this afternoon while at the movies. Things seem to be calming down a bit, hopefully.Thanks for checking in and good to hear you're OK. :DDitto. Glad to see you guys doing ok.

Why does Mother Nature hate Japan? :(
waddayamean hate... she loves Japan... why do you think she likes to party there!

Last report I saw off NHK was 8 dead and 900+ injured. And some right nasty aftershocks.
And about 315 gallons of radioactive water released.

Oh, and we're expecting rain. Niigata just does NOT seem like a good place to be any more!