More on the Earthquake in Japan

Good news, my wife’s family in Kawasaki (southwest of Tokyo) were fine though pretty shaken up like everyone else.

I’ve been watching Nihon Terebi News (I watch daily anyway for Japanese-language practice), and they have some good video (beginning and again around 14:00) from a news office in Miyagi Prefecture (north of Tokyo) of the strength of this earthquake near the epicenter. Around 18:00 you can see from Nihon Terebi News’s office in Tokyo too (the ceiling swaying is scary), and around 23:40 you can see huge cracks in pavement. Hard-hats are frequently used in Japanese culture to protect against earthquakes (since they happen so often), so that’s why everyone on the video is wearing them. Debris can fall even after the quake, after all.

Also, I think Al-Jazeera’s English-language news coverage on this earthquake and tsunami have been very good too.

My wife’s family is somewhat removed from this in Kanagawa Prefecture, next to Tokyo, but from what my wife’s family told her, traffic was stopped all over the place, as trains had to stop and people had to walk home. One of my wife’s best friends had to walk home for 5 hours before she could get to a bus stop and get the rest of the way home. Not surprisingly, offices in Japan for my company have also closed for the day, though thankfully no one’s hurt.

Also, in Japan, in addition to the Richter Scale, they have another scale they use to measure earthquake severity. Last night, when my wife heard about the earthquake from here in Seattle, she kept muttering about shindo (震度), which is how the Earthquakes are measured in Japanese: 1 through 7, but shindo 5 and 6 are further subdivided into “lower” and “upper” (e.g. 5th upper severity, 6th lower, etc). According to Nihon Terebi News, the earthquake was shindo 7 (shindo nana 震度七), so it’s at the very top of the scale.

The Japan Meteorological Agency has a helpful chart to showing tremors is in various places, weighted by the Shindo scale, not Richter Scale. It’s frequently updated, showing subsequent tremors still ongoing.

Anyway, for my part, a lot of people of people have been talking about praying for Japan, but I think there are more concrete things that can be done for Japan (and for victims of China and New Zealand who both had recent earthquakes):

• Donate time and or money to help. Be careful and pick reputable organizations, and be careful about having your identity stolen by fake emails and other devious means. These always arise during a disaster. Donating time or money to help.
• If you live in a risky area for earthquakes (like Seattle), then think about how you can prepare for one locally. Your efforts might save a life someday. You never know.
• Take CPR or first-aid training. Again, you might save a life, you never know.
• Often times, disasters are contained quickly, but rebuilding lives can take weeks, months or even years. Consider ways you can help once things have recovered.

Just some ideas to throw out for people. The Buddhist in me knows that all beings exist in relation to one another, so a tragedy in New Zealand, China, Haiti, or Japan affects us all, and any efforts we do to help others improves the quality of life that much more.

Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu, 南無観世音菩薩

P.S. Some Japanese bloggers I recommend reading (friends I know online): “Life in Kawagoe” and “Heenai Heenai“. These are personal blogs, but are both English language and good reading in general.