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On top of that, one of the toughest part could be the extent of the power outage.

It's reported at around 46000 homes, the region has many elders and the outage will impact air conditionners, but also medical equipment they keep at home and supporting appliances.

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/55a0a3ebb9d0087ae8492ce85c...

> TSMC, Sony, Fujifilm chips, imagers, materials plants evacuated

This makes me think, is it wise to build these places in regions with known earthquake trends.

Almost no earthquakes in Korea and Samsung fabs are also located in the most safe area within Korea.

It started as a Twitter account during the Tohoku 2011 earthquake, and then subsequently became a “real” service; the IP owners for the Eva agreed to let them use it going forward.

The Nerv app is quite good. It usually gives real-time alerts faster than the official sources.

You can even have the weird experience of being notified of an earthquake, watching the shockwave move outward from the epicenter, and feeling it as it passes.

You can keep an eye on this english tracker in the browser too https://earthquakesjapan.com

Somewhat unrelated but how did you find the process of moving to Japan (assuming you emigrated there)

NHK TV is showing extensive damage including fallen smokestacks at Nippon Paper Factory facility, bridge road separation, fallen bridge lane, road cracks, fire, water coming out of drainage etc. It was a huge earthquake and will take some time to assess the damage.

English link on the shindo scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_se...

It's my understanding that small to medium sized cities (and rural areas) depopulating is going on now throughout almost all of Japan. One of the things that really surprised me recently is how low the cost of real estate is for an older, normal middle class home in some sparsely populated areas of Japan.

Apparently the declining population and younger people not wanting to live in their parents' rural countryside home is having a significant effect on property values.

I wouldn't let this get in the way of going there though. Kumamoto is a very nice prefecture to see. They will rebuild (again) and it'll continue to be a great place.

Glad to hear it is not too terrible where you are

Hope the areas around you were just as lucky, thanks for the update!

To be a bit more precise, the Nankai ("South Sea") Trough is a tectonic subduction zone to the south of Japan, roughly the entire length from Izu to Kyushu:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nankai_Trough

And Nankai megathrust earthquakes are those caused by plate movement there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nankai_megathrust_earthquakes

Statistically major earthquakes occur here every 90-200 years, and the last was in 1946.

I've heard there's been a lot of redevelopment in Nagoya, in preparation for a possible future earthquake from the Nankai Trough.

Exactly one month ago, there was almost consecutive daily earthquakes in Kantō region. Always a good reminder the whole country lies on seismically active fault lines.

I was camping/bike packing in Kyushu when this happened! I think I was in Miyazaki on the 14th when we felt the first shock. It was the first earthquake I’d experienced. The multi-story hotel we stayed at felt like it was gyrating in a circular fashion.

Then my pal and I were camping by the Utagenka Bridge, east of Kumamoto for the main shock!

Found a few online webcams, but I'm not really sure I saw the earthquake. People didn't even seem to stop on the webcam I was watching. Lots of cars on the bridge afterwards though while before it there were much less, idk

Given it’s barely even felt outside of Kyushu (JMA 3, the dark blue dots, is "dishes may rattle, some people walking outside notice") that seems unlikely.

Every once in a while (not every year) there are minor earthquakes you can feel in some parts of SK, like Busan: the ground tremors a bit, some shelves wobble... that's the most I've ever noticed.

Never felt anything in SK

I was told that some people in Busan, the Korean city nearest to Japan, felt the earthquake and even felt dizzy.

One thing I've noticed is that people in Fukuoka have stayed calm. I haven't seen panic buying of food or emergency supplies despite being so close to the disaster area.

Not like earthquakes are unheard of in Taiwan or South Korea either.

Buildings are going to be more expensive (base isolation and an extra commie blocks worth of reinforced concrete), but given how expensive fab equipment is, that might not even matter all that much.

Yea seems pretty bad given its on the higher end of the scale... I might be naive but I hope nobody died

It's Japan though. They don't have non-resistant buildings.

Venezuela's own choices.

https://rsf.org/en/venezuela-censorship-exacerbates-earthqua...

I live in an earthquake prone area and thought Japan was cutting edge in earthquake protection. Beyond the obvious concern for other human beings, I am interested in why there was so much damage from what I would have thought was still a relatively manageable size earthquake for them. I am here trying to learn a lesson that I would not expect to learn from Venezuelan infrastructure and earthquake response.

The speed of videos coming out was a little slower so it lost the HN attention span - but it was definitely a hot topic in many other news places - Reddit, X, etc...

The HNK stream can also be viewed at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/live_tv/ with English dubs. The youtube feed looks to have stopped for now.

Apparently there is a risk for tsunami so Japanese govt has issued a further alert. Hope it isn't anything too bad either

I'm sure everyone in the hospital and with collapsed houses would agree with your assessment that it's not a big deal.

273 people died from a 7.0 earthquake in Kumamoto in 2016.

The HN audience decides what is top news of the day, that’s the whole principle this website is based upon