7.8 quake hits Northern Japan

Forum Moderators: open

Message Too Old, No Replies

7.8 quake hits Northern Japan

That's Enormous

martinibuster

9:19 pm on Sep 25, 2003 (gmt 0)

Anybody familiar with earthquakes will know that a 7.8 quake is a nightmare. I hope they get through this as safely as possible.

[asia.reuters.com ]

pendanticist

9:28 pm on Sep 25, 2003 (gmt 0)

Now they're saying 8.0 and they are expecting a 3' Tsunami.

Note: The Japanese do NOT use the same scale of severity as the U.S. Geological Survey, hence the varying numbers.

Pendanticist.

ken_b

9:40 pm on Sep 25, 2003 (gmt 0)

Pendanticist; How does the Japanese scale relate to the USGS scale?

If the USGS scale was 8.0, what would the Japanese number be?

pendanticist

9:43 pm on Sep 25, 2003 (gmt 0)

ken_b - 7.8 as first reported, were the figures from the Japanese sensors.

Pendanticist.

bill

6:31 am on Sep 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

If the USGS scale was 8.0, what would the Japanese number be?

This quake measured a lower 6 on the Japanese intensity scale of 7. The Kobe quake in 1995 that killed over 6000 people was initially reported as an intensity 5 or 6 and measured 7.3 on the Richter scale.

wkitty42

9:30 am on Sep 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

outrageous! a japanese astronomer recently predicted that they'd have a quake in that range but was poohpooh'd about it... i'm betting they've changed their tune now... i read about the prediction on space.com, IIRC, in the last week or two... this will be something to watch and see if there's any backpeddaling...

[added] yup! it was posted on space.com on the 15th and was predicted to be on tuesday or wednesday... ok, so he was off by a week but still! [/added]

EliteWeb

6:23 pm on Sep 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

I went to the post office this morning and the postal worker told me what had happened as I do not live by a tv and it was too early to check the news sites.

Crazyness. Hope everyone is alright there the comments ive seen thusfar on news sites say that the cities withstood it fairly well.

martinibuster

6:27 pm on Sep 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

7.8 as first reported, were the figures from the Japanese sensors.

Nope, 7.8 is the Richter Scale measurement. The Japanese scale equivalent is 6.0.

Pedanticist is right about it being reported as high as an 8.0 (Richter scale.) I hope I never have to experience anything of that magnitude.

pageoneresults

6:55 pm on Sep 26, 2003 (gmt 0)

7.8 is trecherous! Just think, each point up on the scale is 100 times stronger than the previous. So, a 7.8 is one hundred times stronger than a 7.7.

I've been in an earthquake simulator and 7.5 will knock you off of your feet in a heartbeat. You couldn't stand during a 7.8, not much would.

Hope all is okay. Sounds like it was out in the country somewhere and not real close to major population areas.