My bed began to shake!
But that's about it, really.
An
earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 hit Japan this morning in the Ishikawa prefecture. (that's around
here, just a little higher up.)
The vibrations were noticable all the way here in Osaka, which is roughly 340km southwest from the epicentre.
At this moment, one confirmed casualy has been reported.
The feeling was strange; I felt my bed shaking slightly, but not in a manner I could have induced myself. I also didn't hear any large trucks drive by at that moment, so it wasn't very hard to add things up and conclude it's probably a quake.
While I don't tread in fear of one, I do realise that Japan is a country sitting on four tectonic plates, and that a city like Tokyo is long overdue for The Big One (the last one was in 1923 and they usually hit every 70 years or so), but I think I'll be at least OK until I experienced one for real, I guess.
I just hope The Big One will stay away for at least another 70 years. ;)
For those back home reading this with Kobe in the back of their heads: Kobe was a (hopefully) unique case, as the natural gas shutoff valves didn't work, and thus more people perished in the resulting fires than from the quake itself. Since then, these valves are tested more regularly, so I'm quite confident we'll survive, just as long as we abide to the rules you have to follow when you find yourself in a quake.
-edit
As it turns out, the magnitude was still at 3 when it hit Osaka. Wow.
Cheers, K.