Tag Archives: Earthquake

An Ordinary Day

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How has an ordinary day changed for us since Friday’s earthquake? Actually, it goes on pretty much as it did pre-Friday’s earthquake with just a few exceptions.

  • We almost constantly watch TV news when a TV is available.
  • We save power, which means less light, less heat, shorter showers.
  • We have a bath tub full of water all the time – if power is cut we will not get water on the 12th floor.
  • We have bought 24×1.5 liter water for the same reason.
  • We have a box of reserve food such as pasta, canned tuna, and so on.
  • Increased awareness of keeping track of each other and that we always bring a cellular phone.
  • Intensified the blogging to keep family and friends up to date with what is happening – as you may have noticed 😉

In summary, the changes are not big and not really difficult. As all changes it takes some discipline and some extra thought but, as mentioned, it is not really difficult.

We also try to continue as usual. Visiting restaurants with the same frequency as usual. Go to the gym. Got to work.

Sometimes though it is not possible. Sony Ericsson where I work have, for instance, asked all employees to stay home from today until further notice. Konami Sports gym have limited opening hours, 10-18 instead of 10-22, most likely because of the irregular train schedules.

It also seems to have impacted restaurants so maybe many other people have changed their daily lives more than Chie and I have. Yesterday we visited Yasaka and while we were there they got 3 cancellations. Since Friday’s earthquake they have had 94 cancellations, counting in numbers of people. A quite big hit for a small restaurant like Yasaka.

Excruciatingly Single Minded

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Maybe you think I am getting excruciatingly single minded, but even though we try to think and talk about other things we are pretty much every day reminded of the earthquake by after-quakes. Yesterday was no exception. At 10:40 pm we were rocking gently in our bed.



As you can see in the images above the area where we live (purple blob in the right image) is located on the boarder between a green (3 in magnitude) and yellow area (4 in magnitude). On the 12th floor that shakes you a bit but it doesn’t move any furnitures, and once you feel there is no more energy going into the shakes they really don’t bother you that much.

To give some perspective, the red area in the left image is in the upper 6 in magnitude and about 100+ km away from where we live. Traveling through the ground the energy has reduced to around 3-4 in magnitude. Compare that to Friday’s earthquake of 8.9-9.0 in magnitude about 100 km outside of Sendai that you can find almost at the upper end of the right map, 300+ km away from where we live. From epicenter the energy traveled 350+ km to Tokyo and was reduced to 5-6+ in magnitude.

Note that the magnitudes in the images from the JMA is in the JMA Intensity Scale. Which measures the degree of shaking at a point on the earth (the colored areas and dots in JMA graphics) compared to the Richter scale that measures the local magnitude and quantifies the energy with a single number such as 8.9 or 9.0.

An Ordinary Night

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Almost every night now we wake up by one or a few after-quakes. This night was no exception. We had two at 5:02 and 5:09 in the morning. Just outside Tokyo, but not more than 3 in magnitude. Still enough to wake us up.

Looking at JMA’s earthquake information it seems there were quite a few after-quakes along the whole nort-east coastline. All in the same magnitude as the two outside Tokyo around 5 am.

Tokyu Store in Naka-Meguro

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As you may have seen from news reports many convenience and grocery stores are getting emptied, but not in the sense of looting just in the sense of that people are starting to build up private storage of dry food, cans, water and the like.

I quit job early today as there was not much to do. The few people that could get to the office (roughly estimated about 10-15%) were not really in the mood for working it seemed.

When I got home Chie and I went to Tokyu Store to buy groceries and water. Though some groceries were still available like fresh food (fish, vegetables, meat) and frozen food shelves were dry food (noodles, pasta, rice) as well as cans and water were empty or almost empty.



Bread is another thing that seems to be difficult to get hold of. Shelves in Tokyu Store was empty as was the bakery that is located next to the grocery store.



I guess that it is a few reasons for this: i) consumption of these groceries has gone up because people feel uncertainty, ii) production may have gone done as people cannot get to work properly due to cyclic blackout which affects train transportation and, iii) transportation may not run on 100% capacity as people cannot get to work properly due to cyclic blackout which affects train transportation.

Rinban-Teiden/Cyclic Blackout [Updated]

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Waking up today to the news that there will be 輪番停電 (rinban-teiden) or cyclic blackout/power outage. We are divided into 4 groups in Tokyo and each group will take turns in getting a controlled power outage as to prevent overloading the electric power system.

This is due, as I guess most know, to the problems with the Fukushima nuclear power plants. The power production has been significantly reduced to that. In addition, people are asked to reduce conserve power as much as possible.

Chie and I are lucky as we live in one of the few areas in Tokyo that is not part of on any of the rinban-teiden groups. This means no power outage for us.



And as I am writing this the building is shaking gently by another after-quake. Epicenter is closer to Tokyo but “only” 1 in magnitude [JMA] .

[Update] They seem to have changed the cyclic blackout scheme since the morning and we now have a fifth group. It is not clear if our area of Tokyo is included in any of the groups or not. I guess time will tell anyway.