Small Adventure 52

At about 11:40 AM yesterday, Kagoshima got hit by a magnitude 5.2 tremblor that lasted about 1 minute. The hypocenter was maybe 20 miles away, across Kinko Bay, at the town of Tarumizu. There was no damage reported that I know of, and no injuries. But, the apartment shook pretty hard, and I was getting kind of concerned at the end there. The quake was strong enough to trip the gas shut-off valve, so we were without hot water for about one hour, until the gas company reset the valve.

We were lucky. Last year, Kumamoto, on the other side of the island, was devastated by a series of strong quakes and aftershocks, and deluged in heavy rains. This year, just a couple days ago, northern Kyushu got flooded from a super typhoon that triggered mudslides and killed several people. So, yeah, people in Kagoshima are a bit spooked right now.

But, the news media isn't helping. After the quake, I went outside for food shopping. I got down to Maruzen bookstore, where a TV crew was set up to do a segment. The bookstore was closed for an hour, I guess so that the staff could reshelve any books that fell to the floor. The TV crew was milling on the sidewalk, trying to figure out what to do, and the young female reporter kept wearing a hardhat, as if there was some kind of danger from falling objects or something. Very silly-looking.