13.6.06

Hiroshima Earthquake 広島地震




















A strong earthquake hit Hiroshima this morning, at 5am local time. Registering 6.4 on the Richter Scale (5 on Japanese systems), it killed 2 people and many others injured.

Although roads cracked open, tiles flew from roofs, and the sheer force of the earthquake, a BBC correspondent suggests that Hiroshima had a lucky escape from serious damage due to the cities building being built to withstand earthquakes after the city was destroyed by an Atomic Bomb in WW2.

This earthquake was nearly the same magnitude as last month's earthquake in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, which had a magnitude of 6.3.

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Whenever I read these words on a news website "...Earthquake...Japan..." my heart stops. Thank god Hiroshima escaped serious damage. I stayed on the 9th floor of a hotel when I went to Hiroshima. I'd have been wetting myself if I was up there when it struck.

2 件のコメント:

匿名 さんのコメント...

I think you might like this website.

It a real-time view of quakes all over the globe. Super geeky, but interesting.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/

It is amazing how the shock-waves travel around the globe like a faint ripple in a pond, the position is then triangulated. As a side note, globally positioned seismic meters are also permanently scanning for abnormalities in certain regions of the world which would signal an underground nuclear test, as the reading from these tests do not have the pre or post ripples as normal quakes do.

As you say they are lucky to have new buildings in that region.

Destruction of infrastructure is sometimes a blessing in disguise as it forces the country to adapt for survival, thus pushing forward technology and preventing stagnation.

Japan also has one of best, if not the best, Tsunami early warning systems. Sad that many other Asian nations back-pocket the money needed to protect their citizens.

(^__^)V

karekora さんのコメント...

thanks for that, I took a quick look, I take a better look when I'm not at work. :)

As you said, its great that Japan has got such good technologies that even when a quake strikes, they are well equiped to fight it - i.e. tsunami warnings, earthquake-proof buildings etc. But, it is a shame that so many countries live in earthquake prone countries without that information and technology. We should do more to help them...