Devastation

I am home sick today (for the second day in a row). Which means that I have basically spent all day resting on the couch, watching CNN's coverage of the 8.9 earthquake (and subsequent tsunami) in Japan. Holy. Cow. It is just unreal! I am also eager to hear from my old friend Ikuyo, who lives in Yokohama with her husband and one-year-old daughter. I am fairly certain they are alright, since they aren't in the hardest-hit area, but it must have been terrifying for them nonetheless. And it's probably still pretty scary, since everything is basically shut down!

At any rate, the whole thing got me thinking about earthquakes. For a moment, I wondered why anyone would WANT to live in Japan, knowing the amount of seismic activity that the country sees on a regular basis. But then I realized that-- duh!-- I live in California, which isn't much better. Still, the worst earthquake I have ever been in was the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, which measured 6.9 on the Richter scale. 6.9. If I am understanding the Wikipedia article correctly, that is 1,000 times WEAKER than the one in Japan today. And believe me, the Loma Prieta one was plenty strong. I can't even imagine what an 8.9 would feel like. That's just insane.

So then I thought to myself, "Well, there's one advantage to moving to Massachusetts." Right? No more earthquakes. WRONG! I learned that there are actually quite a few earthquakes in New England every year. And better yet, they don't usually occur along the fault lines. They are "intraplate" quakes, which means it is even more difficult to predict where they might occur. Great. Granted, the earthquakes are puny compared to what we get here, but the buildings are also a lot older and are constructed differently (and aren't as resistant to quake damage). Fabulous!

Long story short, I guess nowhere is completely immune from natural disaster. I just hope that the worst has passed for Japan, so they can start trying to recover from this mess.