And So It Goes

Moderate earthquake hits Tokyo area.
San Francisco Chronicle - August 18, 2003
[Moreover - Japan news]

A moderate earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7 shook the Tokyo region Monday evening, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The temblor, which struck at 6:59 p.m. (2:59 a.m. PDT), was centered 40 miles underground in Chiba prefecture northeast of Tokyo

Yes, I felt it: a sharp jolt that didn't knock anything over (okay, a bottle of monitor cleaner), but I've gotten used to it.

Which I find strange: I lived in California, experienced the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and would feel my heart race anytime there was a minor temblor. But in Japan, in a house that is arguably less sturdy than my old Berkeley apartment (a notion supported by the evidence of 5,100 dead from the Kobe earthquake (aka the Great Hanshin Earthquake) only 8 years ago, killed by flimsy older Japanese houses collapsing and/or burning), it's a different story. I've been through many minor earthquakes here, and, with one exception, I can't recall feeling anything except surprise.

(The one exception was the time I was caught in a quake while in an elevator, heading up to our 8th floor offices early one evening. The car jolted, a light I'd never seen before started flashing on the control panel, and a recorded voice suddenly began issuing from a speaker. The elevator stopped at the nearest floor, and I of course got out.

(What gave me a slight bit of anxiety was that the floor was vacant, and I was suddenly struck by the thought that I might be stuck all night in an unlit, completely empty office. But the elevator returned a few minutes later, and my misgivings vanished.)

I can't explain my general calmness in the face of potential natural disaster, in a city that had 140,000 dead in an a quake less than 100 years ago (The Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923). Japan probably has the best seisemic engineering of any country in the world, but I don't think that's it, since California's standards are pretty high, too.