95% of the time, earthquakes are no big deal. The apartment shakes a bit, we just wait it out. What else are you supposed to do? Even for the big one last year, I just sat on the couch and waited, holding a couple of steins from Germany so they didn't break.
A few nights ago we had a pretty big shake. It was a 6.0 with an epicenter not far from us. A lot closer than the 9.0 that was four hours away. This one was at midnight and I awoke from a dead sleep so my judgment is probably off, but I think they felt pretty similar. Well, similar in the first shake. The 9.0 felt so much bigger because the quakes and aftershocks just kept coming for three days or something. This one was just one big shaker.
We live on the eight floor. Even before we moved in, we got a lot of comments about earthquakes and being so high. We both figured the Japanese wouldn't build high buildings if they couldn't survive the shakes, and if it's a big shake that's going to level a building, a couple floors isn't going to make much difference. So we moved in without concern.
The building is built for earthquakes. It's built to rock back and forth with the quakes rather than resist them. So the higher up you are, the more you swing. There's a noticeable difference between a quake on the first floor and the eighth.
Even in the big ones, we've been lucky enough not to have severe damage. During the 9.0, the only casualties were movies. This recent earthquake caused more damage, believe it or not.
Since we were both asleep, I wasn't there to grab for the breakables. A lot of things fell off our bookshelves. Some stone Japanese guarding dogs I had popped off their bases and one of the Roman soldiers Jeff had from Italy fell off his base. Jeff glued them both back together before I even woke up, hence the sign. We had two alcohol bottles crash to the floor in the kitchen, making a huge mess. Jeff cleaned that up too.
Our bookshelves looked pretty jumbled the morning after. Honestly, my bookshelf still looks exactly like this since I've hit a weekend of major exhaustion and some kind of cold. Jeff fixed his bookshelf and the top shelf of mine since I'm too short ;)
One of my pretty pots fell over on the patio, but didn't break. Would you believe it's been 2 weeks and these babies are still alive? I have some kind of purple flower that's growing like crazy. And my basil seeds are just starting to become little pops of green.
Our biggest mess was a couple rows of movies. Jeff said something about changing where the wall straps are placed should fixed the problem, but I figure if they held all three very heavy shelves up through the shakes they're doing their jobs. Now we just have to suck it up and re-alphabetize this pile, which is still sitting just as it's pictured. Lazy is the word of the week in our apartment.
So there you have it, the aftermath of one of the bigger earthquakes we've had. Not like some people imagine them to be I'm sure. But still surprising, sometimes. Jeff opened a cabinet the next morning and had a wine glass come crashing down at him. I opened the closet to get a shirt and found our safe upside down on the floor. My general theory is as long as there's no permanent damage I'm happy.
I know a lot of people get worked up about the earthquakes over here, especially after March 2011. But really, there's nothing to be done. You can't see them coming and there's nothing you can do during. The only solution is to sit it out and let it happen. Probably could be some kind of metaphor for life. But I'm not that profound on a lazy weekend night.
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