Kumamoto rattled by 4.1 quake. No casualties or damage reported, although Overoften said to have “nearly spilt tea”. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Why is there so much white-collar crime in Japan?
Probably because it pays in terms of potential rewards if it goes undetected verses potential punishment if you are caught. A great illustration of this is the Aneha case that just wrapped up in the Tokyo District Court.
First some background:
Architect Hidetsugu Aneha confessed to and was […]

For 6,648¥ ($56) the Koban SP-220E plays music, detects earthquakes, and serves as a versatile survival appliance with LED flashlight, AM/FM radio, multiple phone chargers (Japan specific), and panic siren. It’s waterproof and also has a hand-crank in case you forget to charge it. Just the thing to have around in any earthquake-related emergency. The […]

Satoshi Takisawa, writing in Japanese in the Yomiuri Weekly and translated here, asks: “How Will You Get Home After the Big One?”
What will happen when a major earthquake strikes the Tokyo area and transportation systems are paralyzed? Just for argument’s sake, if 100 people try to walk from their offices in Shinjuku to their homes […]

Check out this website of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which provides information to gaijin (foreigners) about what they need to in case of an earthquake.

Stay close to black men in areas where walls might fall. They will hold up the wall and allow you escape.

Stay away from black men on the train. They tend to […]

Living Japan makes earthquakes very much a part of regular life. So much so that you actually become used to them.
I remember my first Tokyo earthquake. I was in a meeting with a number of Japanese men when suddenly the room started to rock and sway. I stopped whatever it was I was doing and […]

Yukari Onishi, 41, is known as “the queen of Showa Era songs” in Japan, as this article from the Japan Times recounts. How and why she became a diva is told in a very revealing anecdote:
“I was living a happy life with no difficulty. If it hadn’t been for that day, I may have been […]

Reuters announced yesterday that a major earthquake hitting North-Eastern Japan could potentially trigger a 22-meter tsunami, killing approximately 3000 people and causing more than a trillion yen (8.6 billion USD) in damage. Considering how the 2004 tsunami wreaked havoc with a height of 10 meters, I would say this is a VERY conservative estimate.
To […]

When engineers in Taiwan were building the world’s tallest building, called Taipei 101, everyone said don’t worry, it will be perfectly safe.

But now, this!
Engineers in Japan planning on building megaskyscrapers in the future should think twice.
The weight of the world’s tallest skyscraper, Taipei 101, specially built to withstand Taiwan’s frequent earthquakes, could be causing […]

Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has released a statement saying that at least 14 buildings in the Tokyo area are in danger of collapsing should even a moderate earthquake hit.
Hidetsugu Aneha, the architect who designed the buildings, apparently submitted false documents to the ministry to hide the fact that he failed to implement […]

Well. . . It looks like Tokyoiteｓ needn’t worry about bird flu, incoming asteroids, or NORK nukes anymore.
According to professor Bill McGuire of the Benfield Hazard Research Center at University College London, geological pressure building up around Tokyo may result in an earthquake that triggers a super Pacific Ocean tsunami. According the McGuire, the […]

The city of Malibu has started passing out tsunami safety brochures that contain the following warning:
NEVER GO TO THE BEACH TO WATCH FOR, OR SURF, A TSUNAMI WAVE!
When questioned about whether people need to be told they shouldn’t be trying to hang ten on a tsunami, Malibu’s emergency preparedness director stated that he thought […]

UPI reports that Japan’s plutonium stockpile tops 43 tons, up 2.4 tons from 2003. UPI got its information from a Yomiuri article and a report produced by MEXT (couldn’t find a new link, so posted a report from 2004 - in Japanese), Japan’s education and science ministry.

The increase reflected suspension of a project to burn […]

If you live or work in a Tokyo in a high rise building, here is a little something to keep you up nights.
The Mori Building Company has revealed that the 6.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Niigata Prefecture last October snapped a 1-centimeter cable in one of the 67 elevators of the Mori Tower complex in […]

What’s it like to be in an earthquake for the first time in Japan?
Well, the Newcastle Falcons rugby team, touring Japan from the UK, was “shaken but not stirred”, after being caught in the earthquake on Tuesday. The team was staying in a 33-story Tokyo hotel, and the entire squad was in the hotel at […]

Yesterday, the Kanto Plain (where Tokyo is located) experienced yet another relatively strong earthquake that had everyone in the city wondering for a split second whether this was the Big One.
In Japan, the magnitude of earthquakes is expressed as shindo values, which are explained below.

Shindo 0
Shaking not felt by people.
Shindo 1
Shaking felt by […]