Earthquake Diary 84

I forgot to mention that the earthquakes have quieted down. We are still getting little quakes that make the building shake, but they are so small that I barely notice them, and on one except the scientists keeps track of them. For all of Japan we are now down to about six a day and all of them M 5 or below. Also with the exception of those in the Fukushima area, where they are still getting quakes that are only 10 km deep, they are tending to be around 50 km deep, which means little or no shaking at the surface.

The prefecture has announced that it will hire 1000 people for a couple of years. The salary will be very low, 140,000 yen a month plus a full medical and dental plan. These people will help out in the evacuation centers, take care of kids, do paper work and help with the outside clean up. The goal is to give these people an income while doing useful work.

Also the morning paper had an article about one of the bridges that was washed out. It said that they expected to start building a replacement within the year and to have it finished by the end of 2012. Since the bridge carries the tracks for one of the train lines, this means that the transportation system will be messed up for at least another year and a half.