There's never such exciting stuff here in Sweden. :(

I've always wonderd what an earthquake would feel like. For some reason it's an experience i'd like to have just like seeing a tornado or an erupting volcano.

Could be something to do with not having any real weather here just drizzle and strong winds. Sometimes even thunder and lightning wich i love.

Looks like there were minor tremors.

[www.news.com.au]

I sleep through any earthquake not big enough to shake stuff off my shelf. I've been in Tokyo for some of the strongest quakes in the last 7 years (which admittedly aren't that strong in the Tokyo area), and no problems except a minor and shortlived headache due to loss of equlibrium (and then only if I'm vertical - no problems when horizontal, yeah babay!)

Then again, I also spent 3 years living 20meters from the Yamanote line and I grew up in the States next to a freight line, so loud disturbing noises and shakes don't bother me much.

And no, didn't hear anything!

@jesp3r:Europe is boring isn't it?

Earthquakes have never been anything more than a surprise for me, I live far enough away from the California fault lines that I tend to experience nothing more than aftershocks, or whatever the long-distance things are called.

i guess there was a minor tremor in chicago a few years ago. i don't remember it, but it scared the crap out of my sister.

my condolences on the panic attacks, bash.. i've had those in the past. they might run in my family, as my mom has had them too. never fun. :(

@Cchrist: only as far as natural disasters, which i would think you would celebrate :P

@Cchrist: Careful what you wish for, boring is good.

We had one very small earthquake here in Holland about 15 years ago, but I slept through it. Bummer. :(

Bashcraft.

Hang in there man, we're all rootng for you.

There was an earthquake in England about a month ago, I half woke up and for some reason just assumed someone was shaking my bed and if I ignored them they'd go away and they did and I went back to sleep, there was so much damage too, I mean I saw on the news that a single chimney had fallen form a house

@Cchrist:

I've seen a volcano erupt before, Mount Arenal in Costa Rica. It's breathtaking to watch, you can feel the danger, but it's beautiful to watch at the same time. Thankfully, Arenal is a fairly tame volcano, and I was lucky enough to see a fair sized eruption with no clouds obscuring it.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Also, earthquakes are just shaking of the ground, almost like those inflatable bouncy things you might have played in as a child at a party or festival. Just, not as bouncy for most quakes.

@geekgrrl: We used to have floods but now they built this big wall so we don't get them anymore.

@Cruithne: Is it so much to ask for a good storm once a year? :(

@Dannon: I woke up to that one, but then I just turned the other side and slept again.
I found out only the dollowing day.
Living in Europe such a thrill!!!

@jesp3r: Just wait until global warming sinks Stockholm, along with the rest of the world's coastlines. Things are bound to get interesting then.

[earthquake.usgs.gov]

I remember waking up to a couple when I was living in Yokohama. Maybe it was just Godzilla.

I was in the Lome Prieta earthquake in California back in 1989. I was a small kid and was playing outdoors when it struck. I had to run back inside and hide under my bed. I think most of my furniture got knocked over. It also knocked over the third story of the bay bridge... but my furniture is much more important.

Sorry Ash, was just spanking the monkey.

Didn't know it'd effect the whole building!

Having lived in San Diego and now Japan also I know well of the constant threat earthquakes bring. But I take comfort in thinking that god MUST love Japan more then he loves Cali. They get like 4 flavors of natural disasters there a year. (Flash fires, mudslides earthquakes, and visitors from L.A.)

@kenkankendo: Global whatnow?

I live in the bay area, and earthquakes are so blase.

Seriously, they cause shit to happen, and aren't any fun. My town is just about on the epicenter of the 1906 quake, and another is gonna happen soon.

We had an Earthquake in the UK this year. Freaked the crap out of me.

Uh, I felt it around 2, but I was sort of half-dreaming/half-awake hallucinating, so I wasn't especially aware of the time. Was a 3.4... or a 4.3, one or the other.

Ash dont worry if anything Tokyo along with myself is doomed more than Osaka since according to the trend in earthquakes its moving towards Tokyo.

And guess what?

Shinjuku is located directly under where 3 faults meet.

new york; nothing ever happens here. o.o

@Prinnygeddon!: Me too. I woke up, put the news on for 5 minutes whilst I was messing in the kitchen and they were talking about the quake and all I could think was, oh....now it makes a little more sense, I couldn't figure out why someone would be shaking my bed anyway.

@j14rk1n: Everytime I see, hear, think about Godzilla now I can only think of Buster in Arrested Development doing his Godzilla impression, "Godzirra!"

@Witzbold: ... hmm, I wonder if that's why games and anime always have demons appearing in Shinjuku.

Then again, there aren't many places in Japan where demons haven't appeared in games and anime ... ^_^;

Yeah, I'm about 15 minutes outside Osaka, and there was definitely an earthquake last night around 3am. It woke me up and I groggily thought "Oh cool, my first earthquake," briefly before falling right back to sleep.

Sorry, I ate spicy burritos before I went to bed that night.

you can check out japanese earthquakes here

[www.jma.go.jp]

and yes, this was this morning:
[www.jma.go.jp]

When I first landed in America, the first night was awoken by a sight of my gramps holding onto all the frames on the wall and screaming about.

Good 'ol 562, it was hard being a minority within a minority; then God struck.

Looks like there was a 5.4 mag off the coast of Honshu 7pm UTC, which would put it right about 3am Japan time:

[www.iris.edu]

If you know the index codes or names of any nearby monitoring stations, you can click through the date link on that page and see what they reported.

I'll always remember the first earthquake I experienced, not because it was in the middle of the night, not because of their rarity in England or my Mom thinking it was one of the dogs scratching against a cupboard.

I will remember it because the day after, every single news show at some point asked the question "did your partner make the earth shake for you last night, if they did we want to know"

@Cchrist: Not only do we get all the good games late, there's not earthquakes as well!

No, I'm not serious. De facto, I'm glad there's no earthquakes around here.

We had a small earthquake in Toronto about 17 years ago. My roommate was in the washroom at the time and was wondering how on earth her bowels causing the toilet to shake.

Did you mean you had a panic attack first, then woke up and noticed the quake? Or the panic attack was because of the quake?

Getting woken up by an earthquake in the middle of the night is the worst! I can totally relate to the panic attack aspect. When I'm up and awake I think they're kind of exciting, but last summer in Berkeley we had a minor one that was right under us, in the middle of the night (just a 4.2 but strong enough to break some windows at a few shops). In my dream the house was falling down on my head, and I started to let out the most horrible screams! My bedside companion was totally freaked out, not by the earthquake, but by my screaming. I think I was making a sound roughly like I would make if I were being eaten alive by a bear. Not very dignified, no sir.

It was me, *burp* sorry.

@jesp3r: Exactly the rest of the world don't know how lucky they are! :P

Those of you in California might want to know that top scientists are now predicting a near 100% chance of the next "Big One" to happen within the next 30 years...

[www.forbes.com]

Just an fyi.
IOW - ur nutz to be livin there, man. :-p

@MightyKAC: Visitors from L.A. being the worst of the four! A close fifth is visitors from Northern CA bringing down and using the word "hella."

@Witzbold: That actually is quite true, if anything the Japanese Goverment has been quietly urging people to move towards Osaka so that when the big one hits, the country's economy won't be hit as hard.

As for feeling earthquakes, I apparently was in two minor quakes on both occasions I was in Tokyo.
Didn't feel it both times though my friends did.
No idea why.

@wonder6oy: Don't worry, everyone knows- there's always a chance of a "big one." Not being aware of such things is like living in Florida and being hurricane-ignorant.

Bash, this webpage is good for monitoring what the hell did just happen:

[earthquake.usgs.gov]

I used it during my stay in Japan.

@Bellamy: Dood, you're alive! Drop me an email how the things are going.

@wonder6oy: They also predicted an asteroid crashing into earth 10 years ago.

@Xerxes3rd: Oh, I'm not worried. I live far, far away from there. Not worried at all.

:-)

Don't they call tokyo "the city waiting to die" because there hasn't been a big one in so long?

@Cchrist: Not with 99.7% accuracy, they didn't.

i got one here in MA one time about a year ago. woke me up out of bed, it was pretty suprising.

Not sure what I would do if I experienced an earthquake. Probably shit my pants...or cry like a little girl. They are not much of a threat since I live in Dallas.

I live in South Central Alaska. Not only do we get some pretty good earthquakes (even had a 7.9 a few years back, but I don't think anyone outside the state heard about it...), but we also have our fair share of volcanic eruptions. Ash *sucks*.

I'm just glad we've already had our "Big One". Granted, it was in 1964, but it was a freaking 9.2.