Today has seen one of the biggest earthquakes in Japan for a long time. The epicenter was out under the sea, one hundred and thirty kilometers (eighty miles) east of Sendai, a city on the eastern coast and only twenty-five kilometers (fifteen miles) down, which is pretty shallow by comparison to other quake events. This means that a lot of the energy of one tectonic plate suddenly buckling under our plate released most of its energy into the sea as the sea bed ruptured along hundreds of kilometers. The Pacific plate moves fast in tectonic terms, at a rate of 9cm a year. This leads to the rapid build up of huge amounts of energy. As the Pacific plate moves down, it sticks to the overhead plate and pulls it down too. Eventually, the join breaks, causing the sea floor to spring upwards several meters.
My father and I are not currently in Japan. On Wednesday we flew to Los Angeles here in USA so I can see a specialist this week-end. From the airport we rode the Santa Monica freeway up to little Tokyo and have taken rooms in the Kyoto Grand hotel. This morning we drove out to the Skull base institute at Beverley Hills, where I had a chat with the specialist. On Saturday morning I will have a scan with the latest state of the art equipment and I'll only stay in the hospital for around 48 hours.
It's annoying not having this equipment back home but hey, I got to see L.A, well a very small part!
I had a problem contacting Hitomi, but I think that's understandable given the situation. I finally managed to speak with her after about two hours of trying. She had been shopping in the supermarket when the quake hit but she and her family are fine. My brothers and their families are well. The restaurant suffered only minor property damage and Hiro and Rina and the baby are fine. There is so much devastation and loss of life up in the north around Sendai and along the coast of the
Miyagi Prefecture but Tokyo did not suffer so much. They had a violent shake and then lots of energetic after shocks every fifteen minutes.
Let's hope for the best for my people back home and for my own immediate future days.
Love to you all.
Momo
Glad to hear you and Hitomi are OK, Momo, and I hope things go well in LA. Obviously my thoughts are with the people of Japan right now - what a terrible situation!
Simon B
March 12, 2011 9:58 AMI too am relieved. It looks so awful from the TV news.
I instantly thought of you and my thoughts and prayers has to be with everyone who suffered in that tragedy.
Good luck with your specialist and I hope to talk to you soon.
Anonymous
March 12, 2011 11:22 PMJazz my heart is with you, your family and the brave people of Japan.
The latest news is that there is probably around 10,000 dead and there are major worries about the damaged nuclear reactors.
I'm happy to see the quick mobilisation of the assistance and aid teams assisting.
I hope all goes well for you
Garth
March 13, 2011 5:43 PMHi, Sis. I thought, I commented this blog. Anyways, it's good to hear that you're all ok.
I have seen a lot of horrifying images/videos about what happened in Japan and this made me think that, life is really so delicate and nature reminds us of this. No one is safe from natural disasters.
Our thoughts and prayers are with u and your family, sis. Prayers for the whole people of japan, as well.
April Faith
March 14, 2011 11:18 AMThanks for your kind words Simon, Nancy, Garth and April sis.
Thanks also to Steve, Tad, Daniel, Abeola and Wang for kind emails.
It's now lunchtime on Monday morning here in Sunny LA. Dad has had to change the tickets back home. We believe we could go back Tuesday morning but complications arose and threw a sabot into the works!
Looks like we will travel home Thursday. I am resting and watching TV news of terrible devastation back home.
Momo
March 15, 2011 4:09 AMSo glad you and your loved ones are ok. What a horrible disaster; it will be a long time before Japan recovers.
Sparks
March 15, 2011 8:20 AM