Now I have walked home. I learned something about automatic bicycle parking machines today. They don’t work after an earthquake. I just hope it is my bike that is popping out once they start working again, and not an old rusty lady’s bike 😉

Chie also walked home as subways and trains closed down. And they just announced on TV that they will remain closed down for the rest of the day. And we were not the only ones walking home. I have never seen so many people walking, except maybe in Ginza during sales 😀

Anyway, the apartment was quite OK. No major things broken. Furnitures had moved around and a lot of things had fallen down from shelfs and so on. I’ll update with some pictures later.

They are saying this is the biggest earthquake that hit Japan since recording started and the 8th biggest in the world since recording started [wikipedia]. 8.9 in magnitude on the Richter scale at the epicenter and 5 or so around the Tokyo area. After the first quake hit us the building I was sitting in was shaking almost continuously for 1.5 hours. And as I am writing this at 7:40 pm there are still some minor quakes in the aftermath.

For the latest earthquake data in Japan you can have a look at: Japanese Meteorological Agency. By the way, the numbers you see in the map above is JMA Seismic Intensity scale which differs from the Richter scale.