What was your first experience of an earthquake? Was it scary? Weird? Confusing?
The first earthquake I have consciously noticed was a magnitude 4.something on a small fault zone not far from my home town. The wave that shook our terraced house felt like a short burst of pressure, making me briefly worry, but then laugh as it prompted my mother to shout “Stop jumping off the wardrobe!” in a general upstairs direction. I didn’t figure out until hours later that an earthquake was what had happened.
I was reminded of that when recently arriving in Japan, probably a place of many ‘first earthquake’ experiences. Friends and colleagues got all giddy with “I felt a shaking last night!”. After all, there are many seismologists who work on earthquakes every day, yet have never consciously felt one!
But, being in Japan, we also came to realize what a huge national trauma an event like the 2011 one must mean, and that it is a matter of safety to stay earthquake-aware.
Take me as bad example: Wednesday morning, all sleepy pre-coffee, in my pyjama in a Tokyo hotel room. The building suddenly started shaking very noticeably and I barely had time to think “Wait! What was I supposed to do, again!?” before the motion, luckily, subsided. I don’t know what I was expecting – maybe a friendly border control officer saying “Please take a moment to visit our foreign visitors’ natural hazards awareness training room!”? But as it was, I came embarrassingly unprepared despite my previous earthquake experiences and stays in earthquake-prone regions. I thought, “I wouldn’t even recognize an early warning if I heard it on the radio.”
Another bad example! At xkcd.com.
Thus, today, I’d like to draw your attention to past and future first earthquake experiences! If anticipation is the way to prepare, then remembering is the way to refresh. Coming back to my first question – what was your first earthquake experience? We hope that some of you will share an earthquake story with us, in the comments or on facebook, be it confusing, sad or goofy.
And as a way to prepare: The Japan Meteorological Agency provides these informational videos. Of course, few countries operate elaborate early warning systems, but some of the information is generally useful.
