Our family was enjoying a quiet Sunday evening in our Tokyo apartment preparing for our short trip to Singapore the next day when an earthquake hit Japan.  The high rise building shook and our lighting fixture swayed for over a minute – it was very scary indeed!

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) reported a 6.9 magnitude earthquake occurred at 19:56 JST south of the Japan islands at a depth of 340 km.  In Tokyo, a JMA Seismic Intensity of 4 was recorded, although it felt stronger than that.

No injuries or damage reported so far.  No power or service interruptions in our building, TV and the Internet was still working so I went to Twitter and searched for “earthquake” and “Tokyo”.

You gotta love the post “Great instincts, Tokyo. First tweet, then duck for cover”.  That’s too funny!

Once again, Japan has been in the news lately:

• Japan executes three inmates
• Magnitude 7.0 earthquake hits northern Japan, M7 earthquake hits Hokkaido
• Japan to withdraw air force from Iraq, Japan to end Iraq mission
• 5 lawmakers kick of campaigns for LDP leadership
• 2009 budget request top Y89 tril

Japan and Tokyo have been in the news recently:

• Powerful quake inquires 102 in Japan – 6.8 magnitude earthquake which was felt in Tokyo, the second earthquake which has hit Japan in less than a week (that one was a 6.6 magnitude)
• Tokyo woman killed in stabbing attack – A random, deadly attack in a subway bookstore by a frustrated citizen, about 1 1/2 months after the tragedy in Akihabara, which left 7 people dead
• Japan trade surplus down nearly 89 percent – Japan’s trade surplus in June fell 88.9% from a year earlier marking the fourth straight month of decline

The quake, which hit at 8:43 a.m. (7:43 p.m. ET Friday), was centered 100 kilometers north of Sendai (about 300 km from Tokyo) in southern Iwate Prefecture, measured at 7.0 magnitude, killing 7 people with at least 144 hurt.  News coverage from CNN, BBC and several Canadian news agencies:

• CNN
• BBC
• Toronto Star
• CityNews
• CTV

So what was our family doing during this time?  Well, we spent a very nice day shopping at Gotemba Premium Outlet near Mount Fiji.  The time this earthquake hit, we are riding the bus from Tokyo to the outlet mall so we didn’t feel a thing!

In recent (December 2007) article and slideshow from Forbes.com ranks the top 20 most Earthquake-vulnerable cities in the world. Tokyo, Japan was ranked #11. Actually, a recent moderate earthquake (5.0) hit Tokyo on April 4 early evening – I was riding the subway train home, but my wife and son actually felt it in our high rise apartment unit. When I was young, I had felt several earthquakes living in Manila (ranked #5).

Kathmandu, Nepal ranked first in the 2001 study, followed by Istanbul, Turkey; Delhi, India; Quito, Ecuador; Manila, Philippines; and Islambad/Rawalpindi, Pakistan – all of which could expect fatalities in the tens of thousands if disaster struck. The only first-world cities on the list were in Japan: Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe. Fatalities in these Japanese cities were estimated only in the hundreds, not the thousands.

While in Tokyo, we are lucky to be living in apartment building that was designed to be one of the most earthquake-resistant building in Japan – see the figure below showing the effects of the “seismic damping walls” in the building.

Earlier this year, my wife had attended an earthquake drill and found that the whole complex is equipped to handle disasters (food, shelter, medical facilities, all earthquake resistant buildings in the complex, etc.) and is a place where people would go during disasters. Below is one of the pictures she took during the drill.