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As NZ_Matt pointed out, most of the quakes's epicenters are offshore. The strength of the shake decreases rapidly with distance. In Tokyo it's still bad but not as bad as it might appear on the map. Sometimes it's like this:

A: "So we need to add one table to the database and"

B: "Wait."

A: "What?"

B: "It's shaking."

A: "Oh, is it? ... Ah, yeah"

B: "OK now. So what about the backups?"

On the other hand, the bigger aftershocks were grade 3 or 4 (in the Japanese scale) in Tokyo, which ranges from "shaking noticeably" to "shaking quite a lot". Personally, I don't feel scared anymore because I'm pretty sure both my apartment and my office won't crumble. Still, it's quite stressful.

Oh, you probably haven't read it in the (English-language) papers because they're too busy talking about the impending "nuclear winter".




Drudge's lead story right now is about the "radiation plume" that's due to hit the US any day now... so, yeah.

The network news in the US is a slightly-toned-down version of this hysteria.




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