[HN Gopher] Magnitude 7.6 earthquake strikes Japan, tsunami warn...
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       Magnitude 7.6 earthquake strikes Japan, tsunami warning issued for
       Ishikawa
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 263 points
       Date   : 2024-01-01 07:41 UTC (15 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www3.nhk.or.jp)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www3.nhk.or.jp)
        
       | ftcHn wrote:
       | Felt it in Kyoto we think. Slightly swaying power lines and light
       | fixtures. First earthquake experience on holidays
        
       | NalNezumi wrote:
       | Was skiing in Hakuba when it happened, not too far from Ishikawa.
       | It adds to the scare that everyone's phone at the food court
       | started sending off alarm sound in sync.
       | 
       | I'm not sure in the situation, you're supposed to exit the
       | building, or hide under the table? My vague memory says hide
       | under the table (if the building is not old, or close to the
       | sea), but most people rushed for the exit, which quickly got
       | clogged but thankfully not enough panic for Stampede.
       | 
       | My intuition says outdoors, when so close to the slope, is
       | probably more risky with avalanche and land slide risk + vehicles
        
         | overstay8930 wrote:
         | In Mexico we have a scary alarm system as well but normally
         | we're told to stay near the frame if we can't leave reasonably
         | (i.e. within 5-10 seconds), but otherwise I wouldn't really
         | stay in a building after the quake either so during the big one
         | I was just walking to outside the entire time lol
        
           | ChatGTP wrote:
           | If it was a really big one, you wouldn't be walking.
        
             | overstay8930 wrote:
             | I was being very liberal in my use of the word "walking"
        
         | tumult wrote:
         | Outside next to a building is the worst place to be, as debris
         | can detach and fall from the sides and tops of buildings. If
         | you're indoors, stay indoors. Furniture that can fall over or
         | slide around is supposed to already be secured to the wall or
         | floor, but you will probably want to cover under a desk or
         | something, anyway, in case panels or fixtures fall from the
         | ceiling, or glass shatters.
         | 
         | If you're already outside, stay away from the sides of
         | buildings, walls, power lines, etc. You may want to walk out
         | into the middle of the road (seriously):
         | https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2084030/
        
         | ivan_gammel wrote:
         | I recommend to visit Ikebukuro Life Safety Learning Center in
         | Tokyo or a similar place in other cities. They explain very
         | well what you should do and even have an earthquake simulator.
         | For tourists not speaking Japanese it is also possible to visit
         | it. I was able to experience the 2011 earthquake there and it
         | was horrible.
        
           | m4rtink wrote:
           | These are all around the country (we went to Fukuoka
           | Citizen's Disaster Prevention Center for example, during our
           | 2019 trip) & I can highly recommend visiting one of them - it
           | can be very informative and might even save your or someone
           | elses life!
        
         | EnigmaFlare wrote:
         | This seems to be an area where the simplicity required for
         | public education conflicts with the variety of situations. In
         | New Zealand, we've changed between hiding under a table,
         | standing in a doorway (has stronger framing in wooden houses),
         | and curling up on the floor. But always stay inside if you
         | already are. People have been killed by falling masonry while
         | exiting a building, and by falling rocks while driving home
         | after an earthquake.
         | 
         | During one earthquake, I went for the doorway but then worried
         | that it was in an all-glass interior office wall so maybe the
         | wrong type of building to be following that advice in.
        
         | numpad0 wrote:
         | The risk of large buildings defeated by a quake obviously isn't
         | zero, so if there is somehow dozen football fields worth of
         | solid and flat land(in Japan!?) next to where you would be, it
         | makes sense to run out to there and see if the building holds.
         | 
         | If that isn't available, the next best option is to get down
         | and hide under furniture to protect yourself from debris. Glass
         | windows could break and sound deadening parts or small concrete
         | pieces on the ceiling could fall during one, getting hit by
         | those can be fatally uncomfortable, but they're not machine gun
         | bullets and just ordinary tables should be able to stop a lot
         | of them.
        
       | ninjin wrote:
       | The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) is on point as usual.
       | Largest quake so far:
       | 
       | https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/quake_detail.html?eve...
       | 
       | List of quakes (continuously updated and there have been multiple
       | aftershocks):
       | 
       | https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/index.html?lang=en
       | 
       | Scale explained:
       | 
       | https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/quake_advisory.html?l...
       | 
       | Felt it on the other side in Kantou (a "three" here) and it
       | caused some hick ups with the water/gas, but all back to normal
       | here. I am however concerned with those on the other side of
       | Honshuu.
       | 
       | NKH have _not_ been joking around with the evacuation warnings
       | for Ishikawa-ken. The announcers were notably emotional and
       | speaking _very_ sternly:  "Evacuate, _now_! ", "Seek shelter,
       | _now_!,  "Seek high ground, _now_! ", "Protect the life of
       | yourself and those around you, evacuate, _now_! ", etc. It very
       | much brought back memories from 2011. Particularly seeing people
       | running in the streets for shelter on live television. Thankfully
       | the tsunami is looking _much_ weaker than back then.
        
         | Dalewyn wrote:
         | >NKH have not been joking around with the evacuation warnings
         | for Ishikawa-ken.
         | 
         | That is standard protocol and has been iterated upon each time
         | emergencies like this have occured.
         | 
         | Nowadays they put up a _very_ strong act of sounding emotional
         | and serious to try and convince as many who are watching
         | /listening to get off their arse and evacuate.
        
           | krispyfi wrote:
           | I flipped through the other channels and they didn't sound
           | nearly as emotional.
           | 
           | At one point, the NHK voice said, "Stop watching TV! Turn it
           | off and run away! No, don't turn it off, just run away!"
        
             | skhr0680 wrote:
             | They said the same things in the same dramatic tone when
             | there was a tsunami warning issued after an Earthquake
             | overseas
        
           | ethanbond wrote:
           | Can't imagine that causing an issue down the road... hope
           | they track and modulate how many remaining levels of urgency
           | they have available.
        
             | marcosdumay wrote:
             | What needs more urgency than a tsunami alert, but is still
             | tame enough for you to run away from?
        
               | rblatz wrote:
               | A bigger verified tsunami
        
               | Dalewyn wrote:
               | If you wait for the tsunami to be confirmed, you are
               | already dead.
        
             | babyshake wrote:
             | This reminds me of the time a PM asked me if it was
             | possible to make a P-1 priority ticket because we already
             | had a bunch of P0 tickets and they wanted one to be higher
             | priority.
        
       | siamese_puff wrote:
       | Hope you folks stay safe and don't let this affect the new year
       | too much. Wishing you the best.
        
       | Escapado wrote:
       | Was at Onsen in Fukushima (Koriyama) when it happened. For two
       | seconds I thought I was dizzy from the hot water until I realised
       | what was happening. Luckily it was not much worse than the
       | feeling you get when driving a car on the highway. I hope however
       | everyone is safe and the damage is not going to be devastating.
       | And I hope everyone can get to safety in time.
        
       | rich_sasha wrote:
       | When is any tsunami expected to hit Japan? Eg when can we breathe
       | some sight of relief?
        
         | ninjin wrote:
         | It hits the coastline gradually as the waves propagate. But the
         | first tsunami should already have hit Ishikawa-ken. However,
         | there can be multiple tsunamis and the warning is still in
         | effect:
         | 
         | https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/tsunami/index.html?lang=en
        
         | ekianjo wrote:
         | It took about 30 minutes for the first wave to hit. So you
         | usually have enough time to escape, as long as you have a way
         | to get out and move away from the risky area.
        
           | ninjin wrote:
           | My thoughts usually go out to those living with say an
           | elderly parent that can not walk and may even be without a
           | car. 30 minutes (it can be even less than that, as it was in
           | say 1983 with ~12 minutes [1]) is not much to act on in a
           | case like that. It also emphasises the importance of having
           | your evacuation backpack/gear ready, especially on a cold day
           | like today.
           | 
           | [1]:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Sea_of_Japan_earthquake
        
             | ekianjo wrote:
             | > those living with say an elderly parent that can not walk
             | and may even be without a car.
             | 
             | yeah, that can make things a lot more complicated. I guess
             | the only advice would be to move away from the coast when
             | you get older, if possible.
        
       | akg_67 wrote:
       | Live NHK World broadcast in English
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0lYkdA-Gtw
        
         | Dalewyn wrote:
         | https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/movie.html
         | 
         | ^ Also Japanese news broadcast livestream(s) for those who
         | speak Japanese.
        
         | rixrax wrote:
         | Japanse live feed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz2EeMSzqHg
        
       | presentation wrote:
       | Tokyo here, felt a long and noticeable jiggle.
        
         | tkgally wrote:
         | Yokohama here. I was exercising at home when the biggest one
         | hit, and I didn't notice it. I probably would have if I had
         | been sitting down. I found out about the earthquake and tsunami
         | only an hour later, when I got an e-mail from my sister in New
         | Zealand asking if I was okay.
        
       | ekianjo wrote:
       | Felt it a few hours ago about a few hundred kilometers from
       | there. This had the same vibes as the 2011 earthquake (while the
       | 2011 one was much further away) - you could feel it was a very
       | powerful one because it made you feel like you are on a boat for
       | about a minute or so. When a small earthquake strikes closer it's
       | usually short, quick vibrations.
        
       | glandium wrote:
       | Title says 7.4 but text actually says 7.6 (also what JMA says).
       | 
       | Felt it in Aichi. I think it was Shindo 3 or 4 here. A quite long
       | one. Also felt the one before and the one after too, at Shindo 1.
       | At this point there have been 19 earthquakes, but those were the
       | only 3 we felt here.
       | 
       | There had been some unusual seismic activity in that region in
       | the past 3 years.
        
         | ChatGTP wrote:
         | What do you mean unusual? It's usual seismic activity for a
         | seismically active country? There will be many many more events
         | like this in the future.
        
           | glandium wrote:
           | I mean there has been a concentration of strong earthquakes
           | in that specific area. That's not usual, even in a
           | seismically active country.
        
             | ChatGTP wrote:
             | Any articles about it? From what I can tell it's not very
             | far from a fault line, so I guess earth quakes will happen
             | in that area at some point in time.
             | 
             | Genuinely keen to find out more about it.
        
           | alephnan wrote:
           | When OP refers to region, they're not talking about Japan as
           | a whole.
           | 
           | This region is sometimes referred to as Toyama bay and coast.
        
       | freetime2 wrote:
       | We experienced a lower 6 on the shindo scale [1], which is the
       | strongest earthquake I've ever experienced. The Noto peninsula
       | experienced 7 and upper 6 level shaking.
       | 
       | Fortunately we have had a stretch of unseasonably warm weather
       | recently, and most of the snow has melted in the area. If an
       | earthquake of this intensity were to coincide with a meter of
       | snow accumulation on the roof (we had 150 cm on our roof this
       | time last year), it could cause many buildings to collapse.
       | 
       | That being said, I have seen some images of collapsed buildings
       | coming out of Ishikawa, and I expect there will be some deaths
       | from this earthquake. The live feed that NHK aired in real-time
       | during the earthquake showed what appeared to be buildings
       | collapsing. [2]
       | 
       | Note if you do venture onto twitter in search of updates, beware
       | of trolls posting footage from the 2011 great east japan
       | earthquake and trying to pass it off as current. E.g. images of
       | cars being carried away in a tsunami are not real.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/japan-disaster-
       | information/shin...
       | 
       | [2] https://x.com/sataketaken/status/1741719912283033927
        
         | ninjin wrote:
         | Not good, it is looking like not just the nearby building but
         | also multiple more distant buildings collapsing from the
         | footage from the Suzu City Office (Zhu Zhou Shi Yi Suo ) [1] if
         | you look for the dust clouds. Also, do note the very obvious
         | damage to the roof of the building just across the street.
         | 
         | [1]: https://nitter.net/sataketaken/status/1741719912283033927
         | 
         | Edit: OpenStreetMap link for the city office [2] and the camera
         | appears to be facing north east. The nearby building collapsing
         | looks to me to be the Saishoji (Xi Sheng Si ), Buddhist temple,
         | main building.
         | 
         | [2]:
         | https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=%E7%8F%A0%E6%B4%B...
        
           | ChatGTP wrote:
           | What is positive is that it's a public holiday in Japan and
           | many larger buildings in the area would've been empty.
        
             | coobird wrote:
             | Larger buildings tend to better withstand the large quakes.
             | Building codes have been revamped after large quakes in
             | Japan, so large commercial and public buildings tend to be
             | the safest ones. They also are used for temporary shelter
             | in natural disasters like quakes and heavy rain/typhoons.
             | 
             | Problem are with older wooden houses. There's quite a few
             | photos and videos of older houses that have completely
             | collapsed or their ground floors collapsing.
             | 
             | On a side note, since it's a public holiday, hospitals
             | aren't able to cope with those who are injured because
             | they're lightly staffed, and medical personnel can't reach
             | them due to damaged roads, etc.
        
               | ninjin wrote:
               | > Problem are with older wooden houses. There's quite a
               | few photos and videos of older houses that have
               | completely collapsed or their ground floors collapsing.
               | 
               | Indeed. For those who do not know, new year celebrations
               | in Japan happen from 1 January onwards [1] and usually
               | entails visiting in-laws, parents, and grandparents (or
               | them visiting you), very much akin to Christmas. Thus it
               | may very well be more likely to have families coming over
               | to their parents and grandparents living in older houses
               | on a day like this than any other time of the year.
               | 
               | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_New_Year
        
               | ChatGTP wrote:
               | _Building codes have been revamped after large quakes in
               | Japan, so large commercial and public buildings tend to
               | be the safest ones._
               | 
               | They've been revamped, but Ishikawa hasn't rebuilt
               | everything to the new codes in the last 40 years or so
               | they were introduced.
               | 
               | It's not a wealthy area.
        
               | numpad0 wrote:
               | There are ways to upgrade existing buildings that makes
               | more sense in taller buildings than small houses, which
               | of course is government subsidized, so taller buildings
               | in Japan are often safer. Or at least safe for the first
               | one. Some says the exoskeleton approach[1] is ugly as
               | hell, I think it's cyberpunk.
               | 
               | 1: https://dailyportalz.jp/kiji/170113198541
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | I have never seen any of this in Joetsu or surrounding
               | areas (very close to Ishikawa). Maybe you've spent most
               | of your time in Tokyo?
        
               | freetime2 wrote:
               | It's a fairly common sight in Joetsu, particularly for
               | government buildings. This company shows a list of
               | seismic retrofitting projects that it has done in Joetsu,
               | for example:
               | 
               | https://www.sato-san.jp/works/list.php?cat_id=11
               | 
               | There are also subsidies and financing available in
               | Niigata prefecture for seismic retrofitting wooden homes
               | built before 1981:
               | 
               | https://www.pref.niigata.lg.jp/sec/jutaku/1356814927041.h
               | tml
               | 
               | For sure though there are many homes in the area that
               | have never been retrofitted.
        
       | lnxg33k1 wrote:
       | If you monitor there is this italian entity that registers
       | earthquakes https://terremoti.ingv.it/en/
        
         | lloeki wrote:
         | There's Renass in France, live list of world seismic events:
         | 
         | https://renass.unistra.fr/en/zones/monde/
        
         | aloknnikhil wrote:
         | The USGS also has a live list of these:
         | https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=-29.5352...
        
       | creakingstairs wrote:
       | Osaka here. The quake felt like it lasted for ages. I'm a bit
       | worried as in the Tohoku earthquake, 9.1 followed two days after
       | the first 7.3
        
       | resolutebat wrote:
       | First tsunami waves have already hit, they were under 1m. No
       | major damage expected.
        
       | jess-desu wrote:
       | Staying in Gion district in Kyoto. We were taking a break in the
       | historic house we've rented and we thought it was just really
       | intense winds. We were shocked to get the alert
        
       | Jemm wrote:
       | Any connection with the large waves in California recently?
        
         | giantrobot wrote:
         | IIRC the waves California has been getting were storm surge
         | combined with cyclical higher tide.
        
       | dark__paladin wrote:
       | https://nerv.app/en/
       | 
       | A rather nice project for earthquake detection. Plus, EVA.
        
       | cbmuser wrote:
       | And all nuclear power plants at the west coast remain unaffected:
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/SStapczynski/status/1741754345656574292
       | 
       | Plus, the currently operating reactors which all belong to KEPCO
       | did not even have to go offline:
       | 
       | https://www.kepco.co.jp/energy_supply/energy/nuclear_power/i...
       | 
       | (Mihama 3 and Takahama 4 are currently undergoing revision)
        
       | Coreleen wrote:
       | Ninjin gives a shoutout to the Japan Meteorological Agency for
       | their on-the-ball response to the quake - it's like they've got a
       | sixth sense for these things. Dalewyn points out that NHK's no-
       | nonsense evacuation warnings are pretty standard, showing they've
       | learned a lot from past emergencies. And krispyfi? They caught
       | the intensity on NHK, with announcers practically telling people
       | to both run and keep watching. Talk about a high-stress
       | broadcast!
        
       | EMCymatics wrote:
       | Class X solar flare happened a slightly before this.
       | 
       | Also terrible timing for the nuclear industry in japan
        
       | SubiculumCode wrote:
       | https://www.conservation.ca.gov/index/Pages/CA-big-quakes.as...
       | 
       | Big quake in Japan, rank very high in this list of California
       | quakes
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-01 23:01 UTC)