6強
Strong 6 earthquake in Niigata and Nagano Prefectures, with the focus off Niigata. The strongest surface shaking seems to have been in the luckless Chuetsu region, which got hit badly by a series of quakes in October 2004. We certainly felt this one in Tokyo, too, but I was hoping it was centered offshore in the Pacific. A bunch of nuclear facilities shut down automatically, but there aren’t any reports of damage or injuries yet.
Added later: For those unfamiliar with the JMA scale, a strong 6 is a big-ass deal–sixth out of seven magnitudes of intensity: “In many buildings, wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged and fall. Most unreinforced concrete-block walls collapse.”
Added at 17:20: NHK is now reporting five deaths and 500 injured. A train derailed with, luckily, no injuries; and as Alan comments below, a transformer at a nuclear reactor caught fire, but it was brought under control by noon.
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うわさをすれば影 I guess. I, of course, thought it was a dream. If you didn’t catch it, there was a fire at one of the nuclear plants. No radiation escaped, which is something of a relief.
I bet Fujitec didn’t get the elevators up there reinforced in time.
John, I was actually looking out for possible news about that, but I didn’t see anything.