"198 earthquakes on this map"

[gerisullivan]

My brain continues to go all 'splody as aftershocks continue to shake, rattle, and roll around Japan.

198 earthquakes? I simply can't fathom it. Especially with 23 of them coming it at magnitude 6 and higher, and another 118 between 5.0 and 5.9. There was a 6.8 a full 20 hours after the biggest of the lot, the 8.9 that's since been upgraded to 9.0. And another 22 between 5.0 and 7.2 in the 2 days before the big one hit. As if 7.2 wasn't already a big one. As if 6.5 wasn't, either.

My thoughts and prayers are with all who are there feeling the still-rumbling earth as they work on dealing with the devastation at hand. And my thanks and admiration to all who helped make Japan the best-prepared country in the world for the twin disasters of earthquake and tsunami. We'll never know exactly how many lives were saved today, but I'll bet it's easily an order of magnitude more than were lost.

The count is now up to 202 earthquakes on that map.

There's something about the numbers that keep bending my mind. It's hundreds of earthquakes, not just the one we're all talking about. Tsunami waves traveling 10 kilometers inland. Yes, the caption for the photo of the houses ablaze after being swept out to sea held an abundance of OMG awfulness, the fires adding insult to the injury brought by all that water, but it's the numbers I simply can't wrap my brain around.

Here's hoping Mount Fuji remains dormant.

Comments

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

Was talking to parasitegirl in Japan via Skype last night. She was really strung out, overtired and over-tense. And while I was talking to her... there was another earthquake.

She was also telling me that if you're walking and one of the smaller ones hits, you don't notice it right away as your body kind of compensates. Bizarre. She had to walk home an hour and a half from where she works due to all the trains being stopped... made me think of post-911 stories from New York City.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this inside look from parasitegirl. That many earthquakes would leave anyone strung out, physically and mentally exhausted, and super tense. Or so it seems to me. Yes, I know they're more used to them than I am -- I've only experienced one, and it was a 4.5 or something like that.

The part about the trains that surprised me the most was a report that staying underground is safer, so lots of people were simply staying down in the stations through bunches of the aftershocks. When the earth's shaking, the last place I would want to be would be down in it.

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

One is rather less likely to be hit with falling glass and building parts when one is in an underground station, as opposed to rushing out into the streets.

I recall that being bog standard advice for riding out an earthquake - stay under doorframes, or desks, but don't rush outside...

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

I'd be worried that an underground station could collapse.

[chiefwirehead.livejournal.com]

Well, Fuji isn't erupting, but something else appears to be:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/03/13/japan-volcano.html

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Oh, joy.

Granted, it's only been quiet for a couple of weeks, but still. This whole thing is turning into an absurd string of action adventure movie plot coupons, only it's playing out in real life rather than on the silver screen.

We fell into a burning Ring of Fire. And the anime version, of course.