Magnitude 7.6 earthquake strikes Japan, tsunami warning issued for Ishikawa | Hacker News Reader

Magnitude 7.6 earthquake strikes Japan, tsunami warning issued for Ishikawa

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The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) is on point as usual. Largest quake so far:

https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/quake_detail.html?eve...

List of quakes (continuously updated and there have been multiple aftershocks):

https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/index.html?lang=en

Scale explained:

https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/quake_advisory.html?l...

Felt it on the other side in Kantou (a "three" here) and it caused some hick ups with the water/gas, but all back to normal here. I am however concerned with those on the other side of Honshuu.

NKH have not been joking around with the evacuation warnings for Ishikawa-ken. The announcers were notably emotional and speaking very sternly: "Evacuate, now!", "Seek shelter, now!, "Seek high ground, now!", "Protect the life of yourself and those around you, evacuate, now!", etc. It very much brought back memories from 2011. Particularly seeing people running in the streets for shelter on live television. Thankfully the tsunami is looking much weaker than back then.

>NKH have not been joking around with the evacuation warnings for Ishikawa-ken.

That is standard protocol and has been iterated upon each time emergencies like this have occured.

Nowadays they put up a very strong act of sounding emotional and serious to try and convince as many who are watching/listening to get off their arse and evacuate.

I flipped through the other channels and they didn't sound nearly as emotional.

At one point, the NHK voice said, "Stop watching TV! Turn it off and run away! No, don't turn it off, just run away!"

They said the same things in the same dramatic tone when there was a tsunami warning issued after an Earthquake overseas

Can’t imagine that causing an issue down the road… hope they track and modulate how many remaining levels of urgency they have available.

What needs more urgency than a tsunami alert, but is still tame enough for you to run away from?

A bigger verified tsunami

If you wait for the tsunami to be confirmed, you are already dead.

This reminds me of the time a PM asked me if it was possible to make a P-1 priority ticket because we already had a bunch of P0 tickets and they wanted one to be higher priority.

The graphical explanation of the scale is extremely helpful.

We experienced a lower 6 on the shindo scale [1], which is the strongest earthquake I’ve ever experienced. The Noto peninsula experienced 7 and upper 6 level shaking.

Fortunately we have had a stretch of unseasonably warm weather recently, and most of the snow has melted in the area. If an earthquake of this intensity were to coincide with a meter of snow accumulation on the roof (we had 150 cm on our roof this time last year), it could cause many buildings to collapse.

That being said, I have seen some images of collapsed buildings coming out of Ishikawa, and I expect there will be some deaths from this earthquake. The live feed that NHK aired in real-time during the earthquake showed what appeared to be buildings collapsing. [2]

Note if you do venture onto twitter in search of updates, beware of trolls posting footage from the 2011 great east japan earthquake and trying to pass it off as current. E.g. images of cars being carried away in a tsunami are not real.

[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/japan-disaster-information/shin...

[2] https://x.com/sataketaken/status/1741719912283033927

Not good, it is looking like not just the nearby building but also multiple more distant buildings collapsing from the footage from the Suzu City Office (珠洲市役所) [1] if you look for the dust clouds. Also, do note the very obvious damage to the roof of the building just across the street.

[1]: https://nitter.net/sataketaken/status/1741719912283033927

Edit: OpenStreetMap link for the city office [2] and the camera appears to be facing north east. The nearby building collapsing looks to me to be the Saishoji (西勝寺), Buddhist temple, main building.

[2]: https://www.openstreetmap.org/search?query=%E7%8F%A0%E6%B4%B...

What is positive is that it's a public holiday in Japan and many larger buildings in the area would've been empty.

Larger buildings tend to better withstand the large quakes. Building codes have been revamped after large quakes in Japan, so large commercial and public buildings tend to be the safest ones. They also are used for temporary shelter in natural disasters like quakes and heavy rain/typhoons.

Problem are with older wooden houses. There's quite a few photos and videos of older houses that have completely collapsed or their ground floors collapsing.

On a side note, since it's a public holiday, hospitals aren't able to cope with those who are injured because they're lightly staffed, and medical personnel can't reach them due to damaged roads, etc.

> Problem are with older wooden houses. There's quite a few photos and videos of older houses that have completely collapsed or their ground floors collapsing.

Indeed. For those who do not know, new year celebrations in Japan happen from 1 January onwards [1] and usually entails visiting in-laws, parents, and grandparents (or them visiting you), very much akin to Christmas. Thus it may very well be more likely to have families coming over to their parents and grandparents living in older houses on a day like this than any other time of the year.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_New_Year

Building codes have been revamped after large quakes in Japan, so large commercial and public buildings tend to be the safest ones.

They've been revamped, but Ishikawa hasn't rebuilt everything to the new codes in the last 40 years or so they were introduced.

It's not a wealthy area.

There are ways to upgrade existing buildings that makes more sense in taller buildings than small houses, which of course is government subsidized, so taller buildings in Japan are often safer. Or at least safe for the first one. Some says the exoskeleton approach[1] is ugly as hell, I think it's cyberpunk.

1: https://dailyportalz.jp/kiji/170113198541

I have never seen any of this in Joetsu or surrounding areas (very close to Ishikawa). Maybe you've spent most of your time in Tokyo?

It’s a fairly common sight in Joetsu, particularly for government buildings. This company shows a list of seismic retrofitting projects that it has done in Joetsu, for example:

https://www.sato-san.jp/works/list.php?cat_id=11

There are also subsidies and financing available in Niigata prefecture for seismic retrofitting wooden homes built before 1981:

https://www.pref.niigata.lg.jp/sec/jutaku/1356814927041.html

For sure though there are many homes in the area that have never been retrofitted.

Was skiing in Hakuba when it happened, not too far from Ishikawa. It adds to the scare that everyone's phone at the food court started sending off alarm sound in sync.

I'm not sure in the situation, you're supposed to exit the building, or hide under the table? My vague memory says hide under the table (if the building is not old, or close to the sea), but most people rushed for the exit, which quickly got clogged but thankfully not enough panic for Stampede.

My intuition says outdoors, when so close to the slope, is probably more risky with avalanche and land slide risk + vehicles

In Mexico we have a scary alarm system as well but normally we're told to stay near the frame if we can't leave reasonably (i.e. within 5-10 seconds), but otherwise I wouldn't really stay in a building after the quake either so during the big one I was just walking to outside the entire time lol

If it was a really big one, you wouldn't be walking.

I was being very liberal in my use of the word "walking"

Outside next to a building is the worst place to be, as debris can detach and fall from the sides and tops of buildings. If you're indoors, stay indoors. Furniture that can fall over or slide around is supposed to already be secured to the wall or floor, but you will probably want to cover under a desk or something, anyway, in case panels or fixtures fall from the ceiling, or glass shatters.

If you're already outside, stay away from the sides of buildings, walls, power lines, etc. You may want to walk out into the middle of the road (seriously): https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2084030/

I recommend to visit Ikebukuro Life Safety Learning Center in Tokyo or a similar place in other cities. They explain very well what you should do and even have an earthquake simulator. For tourists not speaking Japanese it is also possible to visit it. I was able to experience the 2011 earthquake there and it was horrible.

These are all around the country (we went to Fukuoka Citizen’s Disaster Prevention Center for example, during our 2019 trip) & I can highly recommend visiting one of them - it can be very informative and might even save your or someone elses life!

This seems to be an area where the simplicity required for public education conflicts with the variety of situations. In New Zealand, we've changed between hiding under a table, standing in a doorway (has stronger framing in wooden houses), and curling up on the floor. But always stay inside if you already are. People have been killed by falling masonry while exiting a building, and by falling rocks while driving home after an earthquake.

During one earthquake, I went for the doorway but then worried that it was in an all-glass interior office wall so maybe the wrong type of building to be following that advice in.

The risk of large buildings defeated by a quake obviously isn't zero, so if there is somehow dozen football fields worth of solid and flat land(in Japan!?) next to where you would be, it makes sense to run out to there and see if the building holds.

If that isn't available, the next best option is to get down and hide under furniture to protect yourself from debris. Glass windows could break and sound deadening parts or small concrete pieces on the ceiling could fall during one, getting hit by those can be fatally uncomfortable, but they're not machine gun bullets and just ordinary tables should be able to stop a lot of them.

And all nuclear power plants at the west coast remain unaffected:

https://twitter.com/SStapczynski/status/1741754345656574292

Plus, the currently operating reactors which all belong to KEPCO did not even have to go offline:

https://www.kepco.co.jp/energy_supply/energy/nuclear_power/i...

(Mihama 3 and Takahama 4 are currently undergoing revision)

Osaka here. The quake felt like it lasted for ages. I’m a bit worried as in the Tohoku earthquake, 9.1 followed two days after the first 7.3

Was at Onsen in Fukushima (Koriyama) when it happened. For two seconds I thought I was dizzy from the hot water until I realised what was happening. Luckily it was not much worse than the feeling you get when driving a car on the highway. I hope however everyone is safe and the damage is not going to be devastating. And I hope everyone can get to safety in time.

Felt it a few hours ago about a few hundred kilometers from there. This had the same vibes as the 2011 earthquake (while the 2011 one was much further away) - you could feel it was a very powerful one because it made you feel like you are on a boat for about a minute or so. When a small earthquake strikes closer it's usually short, quick vibrations.

First tsunami waves have already hit, they were under 1m. No major damage expected.

Live NHK World broadcast in English

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0lYkdA-Gtw

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/movie.html

^ Also Japanese news broadcast livestream(s) for those who speak Japanese.

Japanse live feed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz2EeMSzqHg

When is any tsunami expected to hit Japan? Eg when can we breathe some sight of relief?

It hits the coastline gradually as the waves propagate. But the first tsunami should already have hit Ishikawa-ken. However, there can be multiple tsunamis and the warning is still in effect:

https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/tsunami/index.html?lang=en

It took about 30 minutes for the first wave to hit. So you usually have enough time to escape, as long as you have a way to get out and move away from the risky area.

My thoughts usually go out to those living with say an elderly parent that can not walk and may even be without a car. 30 minutes (it can be even less than that, as it was in say 1983 with ~12 minutes [1]) is not much to act on in a case like that. It also emphasises the importance of having your evacuation backpack/gear ready, especially on a cold day like today.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Sea_of_Japan_earthquake

> those living with say an elderly parent that can not walk and may even be without a car.

yeah, that can make things a lot more complicated. I guess the only advice would be to move away from the coast when you get older, if possible.

If you monitor there is this italian entity that registers earthquakes https://terremoti.ingv.it/en/

There's Renass in France, live list of world seismic events:

https://renass.unistra.fr/en/zones/monde/

The USGS also has a live list of these: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=-29.5352...

The good news is that it’s been over an hour without a big tsunami hitting, meaning there is ample opportunity for evacuation. Hopefully everyone’s getting the message.

Title says 7.4 but text actually says 7.6 (also what JMA says).

Felt it in Aichi. I think it was Shindo 3 or 4 here. A quite long one. Also felt the one before and the one after too, at Shindo 1. At this point there have been 19 earthquakes, but those were the only 3 we felt here.

There had been some unusual seismic activity in that region in the past 3 years.

What do you mean unusual? It's usual seismic activity for a seismically active country? There will be many many more events like this in the future.

I mean there has been a concentration of strong earthquakes in that specific area. That's not usual, even in a seismically active country.

Any articles about it? From what I can tell it's not very far from a fault line, so I guess earth quakes will happen in that area at some point in time.

Genuinely keen to find out more about it.

When OP refers to region, they’re not talking about Japan as a whole.

This region is sometimes referred to as Toyama bay and coast.

I get that, I'm just interested in what's unusual about it? Is the area actually an unidentified volcano or something ?

Hope you folks stay safe and don’t let this affect the new year too much. Wishing you the best.

Ninjin gives a shoutout to the Japan Meteorological Agency for their on-the-ball response to the quake - it's like they've got a sixth sense for these things. Dalewyn points out that NHK's no-nonsense evacuation warnings are pretty standard, showing they've learned a lot from past emergencies. And krispyfi? They caught the intensity on NHK, with announcers practically telling people to both run and keep watching. Talk about a high-stress broadcast!

Staying in Gion district in Kyoto. We were taking a break in the historic house we’ve rented and we thought it was just really intense winds. We were shocked to get the alert

https://nerv.app/en/

A rather nice project for earthquake detection. Plus, EVA.

Felt it in Kyoto we think. Slightly swaying power lines and light fixtures. First earthquake experience on holidays

https://www.conservation.ca.gov/index/Pages/CA-big-quakes.as...

Big quake in Japan, rank very high in this list of California quakes

Well done, Japan! Obviously you have prepared.

Looking at some -preliminary- reports, I'm sure there would be many countries worldwide where a 7.6 magnitude quake would cause more damage. And most importantly: would have caused many more deaths.

Class X solar flare happened a slightly before this.

Also terrible timing for the nuclear industry in japan

Any connection with the large waves in California recently?

IIRC the waves California has been getting were storm surge combined with cyclical higher tide.

that's bigger than 89 quake in SF

Tokyo here, felt a long and noticeable jiggle.

Yokohama here. I was exercising at home when the biggest one hit, and I didn’t notice it. I probably would have if I had been sitting down. I found out about the earthquake and tsunami only an hour later, when I got an e-mail from my sister in New Zealand asking if I was okay.

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