Earthquake Diary 58

Saturday, April 9
We had a huge aftershock at about 11:30 on Thursday night, as you probably have heard on the news. My wife and I were asleep in bed and laid there during the whole thing. It felt longer than it actually was, but it also was noticeably less strong than the 3/11 quake. However, it was strong enough that we knew damage was being done outside. Before the shaking had a chance to subside the power went off and with it our water, since the water is carried to the roof top tank by an electric pump. My son-in-law Hiro had arrived early that morning to take my daughter and Tomone back to their home in Kawasaki. He drove up because it did not look like other transportation was going to be possible soon.

Anyway we all got up and turned on the radio. There was little news because of the power outage. They said that it was a shindo 6+ in Sendai and area to the north. The 3/11 had been a shindo 7, which is the highest ranking.

As I understand the shindo system for earthquake intensity, it is based on the shaking at a specific geographical spot and has values of 0 to 7, with the 5 and 6 values also having + and - values. In the past the scale was determined by the estimates of people on the ground who worked with a grid stating what would be happening (feel shaking, things falling off shelves, buildings collapsing, etc), but now there is a system of about 800 stations that use machine measurements. This means that the values can be broadcast on TV and radio within minutes of the quake. The connection of the value to a location means that different locations will have different values. These values will depend on the magnitude of the quake, the depth of the quake, the distance from the center, and the makeup  of the ground between the quake and the location.

Just had another fairly strong aftershock, probably a shindo 3.

Anyway, the shindo system is extremely good for understanding the effect that the quake has had on the people and buildings in each area. The magnitude system gives the total magnitude of the quake at it source but nothing about the effect on people and things.

After the Thursday night aftershock, the power stayed off until last night. After the sun went down, my wife and I sat at the dining room table with three candles burning. I read and my wife was listening to the news on the radio. At one point she walked out into the kitchen, and discovered that the street light outside was burning. I got up and opened the curtains to find that the lights in the building's parking lot were on. I then through the main breaker switch and on came the lights. We filled the bath with hot water and after using it went to bed for the night.

During the day on Friday I took two walks around the neighborhood. Immediately following the Thursday quake we had noticed a lot of people leaving our building in cars and wondered where they were going. On my walks I found out. They had been going to convenience stores. In the morning they were all empty of goods and closed. Some of the big stores were doing business by lamplight but the smaller places were all closed.

I noticed that there were many more cracks in the roads, which I will eventually show in the pictures. Also there seemed to be some additional damage to buildings.

In talking to our relatives and friends in Tokyo and to the south and west, we heard that prices have been soaring, as much as 200+ % for some things. Also many items are impossible to get. Bottled water seems to be a particular problem. One friend with a baby is having trouble finding bottled water to use to make baby milk. There was none in Fukuoka and they asked friends in Yokohama who could not find any either. Here is Sendai we have bottled water. In fact we have most items and in sufficient numbers. An interesting thing is that prices have not gone up very much here. Gasoline supply is at about 60-70% of normal and transportation is a huge problem, but prices have only gone up about 15%. The same for fresh food which seems to reflect the increase in transportation costs but nothing else. I sure hope that the prices stay level here.