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.
Does it play appropriate Evangelion OST track depending on magnitude though?
From the site:
> The name and logo of "NERV" are used with the explicit permission of khara Inc., the copyright holder of the "Evangelion" series, and Groundworks Corporation, which manages the rights to the series.
I wish more corps took themselves so lightly, while remaining serious about what they do.
Which is funny to say because Star Wars is actually the Western version of samurai movies (especially but not exclusively Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress).
That's the movie that Lucas is pretty open about heavily drawing "inspiration" from (all the way down to specific characters and plot beats) but Hidden Fortress is itself part of a larger genre of similar stories.
Evangelion is a disgusting anime to consider part of your national personification. Drop it and pick up Ghibli films more please Japan.
Anyway I need to get back to working on the Torment Nexus.
The 45 seconds is better thought of as the time it takes for the quake to propagate to Tokyo
If it were 8+ or somewhat closer, I'd get under my desk. (then pull up social media on my phone)
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.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/myshake-earthquake-alerts/id14...
Under these constraints it is effectively impossible to send automated alerts at scale with low latency as demonstrated here. A private app does not operate under such constraints.
That would include Apple and Google.
How many stories above the ground, and might you guess at your building's construction (wood frame, steel frame, etc.) and foundations (on bedrock, on loose sediments, etc.)?
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.
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.
kids in the park stared doing wobbly knee dance :D
felt the quake about 30sec later.
[1]: https://rubykaigi.org/2026/
[2]: https://www.japan.travel/en/japan-safe-travel-information/ts...
Surprised others said they felt it.
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.
Here you have the same earthquake, but reported by Japan: 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.
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?
> The name and logo of "NERV" are used with the explicit permission of khara Inc., the copyright holder of the "Evangelion" series, and Groundworks Corporation, which manages the rights to the series.
This kind of data is actually shared by governments with each other as well.
Science has no borders, much less disasters.
