The Earthquake

Our first night we were awakened to our first earthquake here in Japan. After our long journey, it wasn’t actually the earthquake that woke us, but Di, who was already awake nursing Ashley. She said that at first it felt like a little tremor. Being an earthquake veteran she wasn’t worried until it got stronger and the closet doors started shaking and the building started to sway (we were staying on the third floor). At that point she cried out, “Ryan, we’re having an earthquake.” I awoke to find everything shaking. We woke the children and got into the door frame just in time for it to stop. There wasn’t any damage in our hotel room, but a cereal box fell off of the refrigerator into the sink.

The base initiated a recall, so Jason called to make sure we were OK. He said that they had several things fall and break and his TV would have fallen off of the armoire if he hadn’t jumped out of bed and held it in place.

Everyone I have talked to said that this is the worst earthquake they have had here in several years—probably because it was so close. It was centered about 60 miles south of Misawa, but fortunately it was very deep in the earth, so the damage was much less than it otherwise would have been.