20 ms·
M 7.4 earthquake – 100 km ENE of Miyako, Japan
- alfg 6mo agoI live in Tokyo in a 2 story house. Felt it swaying quite a bit for a few minutes.
- tristanj 6mo agoThe earthquake magnitude was revised up to a 7.7 No major tsunami is expected, local media reported initial waves were recorded as high as 40cm. The Japan Meteorological Agency forecasted up to 3m (10ft) waves. I don't believe this earthquake is a big deal. Large earthquakes (M7.0+) happen in Japan several times a year, and given this happened in the middle of the ocean, I don't expect any major damage.
- klempner 6mo agoYes, this is definitely only a medium deal, given that the tsunamis were mild. There is the usual concern that it might be a foreshock for a bigger quake but that's fairly unlikely. Plenty of disruption (including a bunch of the shinkansen lines) and annoying evacuation up on the coast. I will say that this was the longest swaying I've felt in my Kawasaki tower mansion apartment since moving here three years ago -- things were still moving about 5 minutes after it started.
- athrowaway3z 6mo agoFor anyone interested as i was. The Fukushima disaster was the result of a 9.1
- uncognic 6mo agoAnd the fact that it is exponential, meaning that a magnitude 9 earthquake is more than 1000 times stronger than a magnitude 7
- danielovichdk 6mo ago[flagged]
- embedding-shape 6mo agoBecause? Here you have the same earthquake, but reported by Japan: https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/quake_detail.html?eventID=20260420172425&lang=en https://www.data.jma.go.jp/multi/quake/quake_detail.html?eve... As a European, I feel fine that American and Japanese governments report on this.
- danielovichdk 6mo ago[flagged]
- embedding-shape 6mo agoAre they making recommendations on that page? Are they trying to "know better" than the Japanese government because they too keep track of earthquakes? I'd say you seem to lack critical thinking, but you'd probably claim the American government stole it from you.
- DonHopkins 6mo agoMaybe there should be a web site americaquake.gov just for American earthquakes. Why did Mongo have an "EARTH QUAKE" button on his spaceship control console? Did he have buttons with the names of all the other obscure bodies he encountered, too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqVgrkmRF8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqVgrkmRF8Y
- notdefio 6mo agoJapan has their own communication platforms for this, they're not relying on a US government site. I'm in Japan on vacation, and I got notified of the earthquake within a minute of it happening on the NERV app, which is a common disaster alerting app here.
- 6mo ago
- pezezin 6mo agoI live in Aomori (Northernmost prefecture of Honshu) and we got the warning before the earthquake arrived by all the cellphones in the office going crazy at the same time. It was kind of funny, because we have a lot of new guys here who have never been to Japan before and it was their first earthquake ever xD
- whatsupdog 6mo agoHow much warning did you get? I mean in minutes or seconds?
- asutekku 6mo agoDepends on the location, the alert comes usually as soon as the initial tremors are registered. If you're at the epicenter, tough luck. For example, for me in Tokyo, the alert came 2 minutes before it hit, and even then, the actual earthquake was extremely subtle.
- pezezin 6mo agoIn our case I guess we got the warning 10~20 seconds before the earthquake? I don't know, I didn't count it xD
- fungi 6mo agowas reading in a park in suburban tokyo a few years ago, notifications arrived for the noto peninsula earthquake. kids in the park stared doing wobbly knee dance :D felt the quake about 30sec later.
- donw 6mo agoThis one was weird, too, like being on a boat in mildly choppy water, not a violent shake at all.
- piazz 6mo agoFelt it all the way in Tokyo! There is this amazing app called NERV that, whenever there is a large earthquake anywhere in Japan, sends you an early warning push notification and an animated display with shockwaves emanating from the epicenter, plus a countdown timer for the first wave hitting you. The first it went off for me it felt like something out of sci-fi. I think I got 45 seconds this time before my apartment started shaking. https://nerv.app/en/ https://nerv.app/en/
- kzrdude 6mo agoHow do you use your 45 seconds?
- piazz 6mo agoIf it's a big one and it's near you, you'd move away from the windows and heavy things that can fall, I suppose? For me I always just turn on iPhone screen recording and marvel at this amazing app and wish we had something like this in California.
- vladgur 6mo agoWe do - gave me a few second warning of a 4-point one a month or so ago https://apps.apple.com/us/app/myshake-earthquake-alerts/id1467058529 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/myshake-earthquake-alerts/id14...
- klempner 6mo agoAt 45 seconds, load up social media. (although I actually missed the warnings this time, was focused on work) At least assuming the number is only 7.x. If it were 8+ or somewhat closer, I'd get under my desk. (then pull up social media on my phone)
- fennecbutt 6mo agoStanding underneath a doorframe is also advisable.
- thomascountz 6mo agoRuby Kaigi[1] starts soon in Hakodate, across the Tsugaru Strait in southern Hokkaido, ~200–250 km away. I hope everyone stays safe.[2] [1]: https://rubykaigi.org/2026/ https://rubykaigi.org/2026/ [2]: https://www.japan.travel/en/japan-safe-travel-information/tsunami/ https://www.japan.travel/en/japan-safe-travel-information/ts...
- felixding 6mo agoI live in Tokyo. Today's quake felt pretty strong (maybe because I was on the 14th floor) and lasted a while. Haven't felt one this big in months.
- floxy 6mo agoIs there a disproportionate frequency of earthquakes in Japan? My mental model is that there would be a uniformish distribution of earthquakes all around the Pacific ring-of-fire. But even living in a U.S. state with a Pacific Ocean border (and tsunami warning signs all along the coastal towns), it still seems like Japanese earthquakes outnumber local ones by a wide margin (especially for bigger ones like M7.0+). This could also be explained because Japan has a much higher population density, so earthquakes make headlines easier. And the devastating earthquakes in 2011 could make people more sensitive to earthquakes in Japan. But I guess my question is partially answered by a map of earthquakes on the Wikipedia page about the ring of fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire#/media/File:EQs_1900-2013_worldseis.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire#/media/File:EQs_1... ...where is does seem like the West Coast of the North America has lower quake frequency. Here's to hoping the Cascadia subduction zone remains quiet for a while longer.
- eigenform 6mo agoNo reason that the rate of subduction has to be the same everywhere. Some of the plate boundaries might be moving into each other in different directions too, the coupling between plates is not necessarily the same everywhere. Anyway, in the case of Cascadia, remember that the lack of big earthquakes over the past 100 years is probably telling you that we just happen to live in a time where strain is accumulating (D:)
- floxy 6mo agoYes, I guess we should hope for a lot of M6 quakes in the near term. Or hope that in 100 years the infrastructure will be much more quake resilient than today.
- CodeCompost 6mo agoIs this the Richter scale? I thought it was obsolete.
- azepoi 6mo agoIt is not. It's the moment magnitude scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale
- vaylian 6mo agoHow long do these earthquakes typically take until they are over?
- left-struck 6mo agoI’m Chiba so pretty far away from this one, and in this case it was like a real low frequency swaying that lasted maybe 3 minutes or so. In the past there were small earthquakes closer to me that felt like quite a violent bump followed by higher frequency vibrations, but less than a minute. Those earthquakes were much smaller though, like magnitude 4.
- kccqzy 6mo ago> The 1989 earthquake in Loma Prieta, California, which killed sixty-three people and caused six billion dollars’ worth of damage, lasted about fifteen seconds and had a magnitude of 6.9. A thirty-second earthquake generally has a magnitude in the mid-sevens. A minute-long quake is in the high sevens, a two-minute quake has entered the eights, and a three-minute quake is in the high eights. By four minutes, an earthquake has hit magnitude 9.0.
- budududuroiu 6mo agoWas in Tokyo today, if I didn't see the news, I wouldn't have noticed there even was an earthquake. Surprised others said they felt it.
- jhatax 6mo agoDidn’t feel it either, and my family and I are close to Shirokanedai. I hope folks are fine where this was felt more than what I experienced.
- ursuscamp 6mo agoMy brain is so cooked that I saw “M 7.4” and the first thing I thought was, “Which model is that?”
- ngruhn 6mo agoIt's quite mid on the benchmarks. No where near the SOTA earthquakes.
- realo 6mo ago[flagged]
- fred_is_fred 6mo agoThe USGS can still help you find oil and gold though.
- eigenform 6mo agoafaict part of the messaging behind this quake is about the worry that big Sanriku earthquakes like this might make it easier for the northeast part of the trench to unlock (closer to Aomori and Hokkaido, where the Japan Trench starts turning into the Kuril Trench).