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TOKYO – I had just stepped into an elevator in Tokyo and pushed the button for the 11th floor.
Suddenly, I noticed the elevator was shaking. The sound of grinding metal echoed through elevator shaft above me. I glanced through the still open doors of the elevator into the hallway at the crystal chandelier I had just been standing under. It was swaying wildly.
AFP - Getty Images
Elementary school children crouch under their desks at their school in Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture on Tuesday as another powerful aftershock hit northern Japan. Click on the photo above to see a slideshow of the devastation in Japan a month after the 9.0 quake.
“Bing!” The elevator doors started to close. At that moment I realized I was about to take an 11-story elevator ride during an earthquake.
No thanks!
My foot jammed the closing door and, as the sounds and vibrations grew louder and stronger, I used my hands and arms to pry the heavy doors open. I’ve never exited an elevator so fast in my life.
Now what?
The chandelier was still swaying precariously. The whole building was shaking. I ran to an archway, the strongest part of the building I could see. I heard cracking and pounding and a low, rumbling sound like thunder.
Oh, how I wished it were only a West Texas thunderstorm – at least you can predict those. But this was a 6.6-magnitude earthquake. How can anyone know it’s coming?
Charles Hadlock
The elevator Charles Hadlock jumped out of when he felt the quake coming.
In Japan, it turns out, scientists know – if only by a few seconds.
When I finally made it up to the NBC News offices on the 11th floor of our hotel, everyone was on the phone to New York and London alerting the network of the powerful earthquake that had just struck north of Tokyo – this was on Monday, the one month anniversary of the big 9.0 quake.
Another one coming…
The TVs in the room were tuned to NHK, Japan’s public television network. The NHK anchors were wearing helmets and showing the latest earth-shaking videos.
Suddenly, the TV blared three loud tones and a map of Japan appeared on the screen with a big red “X” north of Tokyo. I didn’t have to understand the Japanese language to know this was unusual, maybe ominous.
I turned to my colleague, Yuka Tachibana, who is fluent in Japanese, and asked her what the alert on the TV meant. “It means there’s been another earthquake,” she said calmly. “And we’ll be feeling it shortly.” Another colleague was reading a text message he had just received from the government: an earthquake shockwave was coming.
Less than 10 seconds later, the room began to rock and rumble, though not as violently as during the one a few minutes earlier. The numbers on the screen indicated this quake was a mere magnitude 5.2.
How is this early warning system possible (and why don’t we have one in the U.S.)?
Warning system
Japan has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past 15 years building an earthquake early-warning system.
It centers on a network of seismometers across the country. When a seismometer detects the initial shockwave of an earthquake, computers quickly calculate how powerful the second wave will be and, if it meets a certain threshold, an alarm is sounded. Televisions, radios and cell phones all get the same message within seconds.
The early warning system still can’t predict earthquakes, but it can warn residents that a shockwave is on the way, providing crucial seconds for people to protect themselves before strong tremors arrive.
During the record magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11, the strongest ever recorded in Japan, Tokyo received about a one-minute warning that trouble was on the way; enough time to stop trains, close flood gates and help cities and industries minimize damage.
A YouTube recording shows how the warning was displayed during a live broadcast of Japan’s parliament. The shaking begins about 40 seconds after the warning appears on screen.
The system is not perfect. The closer to the earthquake epicenter, the less warning time is possible and sometimes the alerts arrive too late or they are simply false alarms.
But the March 11 earthquake warning came just in time for Hitoshi Yamada, 76, of Fukushima. He saw the warning on TV and quickly found his 5-year-old grandson, Natsumi. The two held hands as the massive quake violently shook their small home for three minutes and ten seconds. All they could do, he said, was to hang on to each other. They survived the quake and are now living in a shelter in Tokyo.
By all accounts, the warning system is a good head start, giving millions of people in Japan time to react; time for loved ones to find each other; time for news anchors to put on their hard hats and maybe warn others not to step into elevators.
Charles Hadlock is an NBC producer/reporter currently on assignment in Japan.
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Why don't we have an earthquake early warning system here in the US??? Because we spent our money on all the wrong things and we are fresh out!!!
Here in Tokyo, the warning system has worked for me 5 times since the biggest earthquake of 11 March. (There have been some 400 or more earthquakes since then.) Many times, of course, I simply was not aware of any warnings that may have been broadcast because I was out or was not watching television or listening to a radio or did not have the (free) Android application running, but I've probably been in my home with the television running for 50 or 60 earthquakes. The warnings generally give us enough time to get up, open a window (for possible escape), and hold on to the things most likely to topple in a big quake. Not mentioned in the story and perhaps most useful are clocks sold here with radio receivers built in. These sound an alarm at one of the earthquake warnings.
Nice story. Never heard of this kind of system before. Can't imagine being in an elevator during an earthquake!
This is great news.. albeit sad and predictable that this information/technology isn't being used elsewhere-you know.. since earth quakes can affect EVERYONE. It sure is a strange world.
A minute warning is a LOT longer than "a few seconds" when it comes to an earthquake. I kept hearing "a few seconds" from various media and now I know that at least it's enough time to make a decision about where to go and brace and to have a little time to get there.
A few seconds can also mean a lot in preventing secondary disasters and springing into action after the earthquake as well.
Having an “few seconds” early warning system can let a chef know to shut off the gas stove while they are cooking to avoid secondary catastrophes like fires. Gas companies can cut off supply to gas valves to avoid ruptures across the city. Electric companies can shut off electricity so people don’t get electrocuted by falling overhead power lines. Emergency rescue vehicles can be moved from the garage to the outside ready for standy (what good are fire trucks and ambulances if they get crushed by falling buildings?).
A chain of events happen during an earthquake and those few extra seconds of decision making can go a long way after the earthquake is over.
Did the people in that video that are being filmed not receive the same warning? Except for the guy in the doorway @ :37 (that would definitely be me, if I were in that situation...)
Why don’t we have it in the US? Because over here they would rather want to use the same hundreds of millions to let big oil and Wall Street fat cats rich instead of investing on something new and saves lives.
I applaud the Japanese in using their money wisely in new technologies like these. It may not be perfect, but they surely have the world’s most advanced lead in these earthquake related technologies and that after more improvements, it is sure to be exported to the world’s most earthquake prone regions while we sit back and wonder why the Japanese are making billions in earthquake prediction and early warning systems.
Japan is just as broke as we are. But thought of their populace where we did not. We're too busy preserving the top 5%s tax cuts. So they can invest, with the saved tax money, in China and drain more US jobs.
Well, there were the two "lost decades" Japan lapsed in economic stagnation, but overall, the country has suffered a lot less inflation than the United States.
To answer 'Shaydie', the warning you get really does depend. If you are located right at the epicenter, you will have no warning no matter how expensive a system you put in place. The farther away you are, the more warning you get, but the smaller the earthquake as well. I think we've definitely seen in Japan that even 5 seconds is enough warning for a variety of things (stopping trains, having elevators halt at the next level, shut down heavy machinary, etc). Whether we get it in the US or not is a question of priority. The money is available, but to make it work, we'd need a long-term commitment to research it, build it, maintain it, and ensure that all the media channels (phones, alarm clocks, tv, cable, etc) are hooked into it. I'd be surprised if we didn't have some degree of warning already in place, but it's not very well integrated into our day-to-day life...
As they say here in America, "if you build it, they will tell you it's not good enough, was a waste of the taxpayer's money, and is bad for the environment".
What are these children doing under their desks? I would think the Japanese people would know better!
They're under desks because it's safer than not being under the desks. A beam falling from a ceiling will have some of its force dissipated by the desk's legs.
Having grown up in California, they teach the same thing in grade school.
If you feel an earthquake, get under a table or desk. If none is available, stand in a doorway.
Are you kidding? Why would they "know better"? In Japan, its all about form, appearance. Form is always over function. Everything is categorized, numerically and otherwise, but of no value. So telling people to get under a desk sounds good, but is of no value. Just like everything else in Japan.
Because they've been dealing with earthquakes for millennia?
The rest of your post is just racial nonsense.
Why would the Japanese people let children get under tables thinking they would be safe???
Maybe someone will make a cell phone app being connected to a seismometer that rings your cell within a second.
Most have cells with them all the time..if not the person next to you does.
Fantastic idea. I know in a cave in East Tennessee there is a very sensitive seismometer. Could it's results be transferred to an app graphically real time??
It's already been done. I've one in my phone, and I'm sure many of my neighbors and friends here in Japan do as well.
Melinda, it's a matter of time (or lack thereof). The children get under their desks to protect themselves from falling ceiling tiles and possible glass shards. There simply isn't enough time to organize the children and get them out doors. And can you imagine the damage and injuries caused by simply telling the children to "go". They believe the school buildings will hold up but the various items in the classroom will come down. Safest place? Under the desk or table. They even have trainers where you go into what appears to be a normal room and sit at a table. The room starts shaking and you dive under a table as pictures, shelves and the like come down off the walls. And in the old days, children were taught to wrap a zabuton (cushion) around their heads to proctect them from earthquakes and American bombs. -JJM, Yokosuka, Japan.
jjmarold is correct. My wife works at an elementary school and is involved in several-times-yearly earthquake drills. The drill is to start gathering the children after the earthquake has stopped, as it usually takes as long as five minutes--my wife said the school's best time was slightly less than 3 minutes--simply to get everyone from inside the buildings to outside where those responsible can check on who is present, injured or not, and so on, and compare lists with attendance lists and so on. Earthquakes usually last only a matter of seconds, and there often is literally not enough time to get to the safest places or even to exit buildings.
Don't expect any warnings in the USA, as your Govt (Obama) doesn't believe that they are predictable! He's culled funding for NASA's planned earthquake prediction study satellite, so you're on your own guys!
March 28th According to a senior U.S. intelligence official, the decision by President Obama to cancel the DESDynI LIDAR and radar satellites, that would have tracked earthquake and volcanic activities from space, was not the work of some accountant hack at the Office of Management and Budget. The issue was studied by the President's top science advisor, Dr. John Holdren, and it was the President's science advisory board that recommended that the program be scrapped, according to the source,
who closely tracks these issues.
Holden, it should be recalled, co-authored the book, Ecoscience, with genocidalists Paul and Anne Ehrlich in 1977, which called for a "Planetary Regime" to ration resources and impose population control, as well as an essay in 1995 calling for a "world of zero net physical growth" and the limiting of population.
The source further warned that, despite growing evidence that the Pacific Coast of the United States is facing major seismic eruptions at any time in the next several years, there is no mobilization of resources and "no preparedness." "The response is bureaucratic and gradual. There is certainly not a mobilization, even in California, where there is a higher level of preparedness," he emphasized.
Earthquakes are not very predictable like a storm or the weather is. To be honest the quake in Japan could have created another fault in the Earth's crust that could have fractured all the way to the East coast of America.
The next big quake could see half of the East Coast of America crumble into the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing could be done to stop it either.
To any geo-physicists: this 9.0 quake was obviously significant. But I wanted to ask about the frequency and high magnitude of the after- shocks: Is the behavior of these after-shocks unusual? Are the shifting geographic areas of these after-shocks unusual? Could this current techtonic plate adjustment maintain its unusually high, frequent and strong activity for an unusually long amount of time before it stabilizes. Has the mantal been compromized by this significant shift of the plates in this area and can magma possibly leak to the surface from this current plate adjustment? Thank You
I'm no geo-physicist, but I watched the Nova special on the Japan quake. :)
It is very common for aftershocks to occur after major earthquakes (potentially years later), with many of the aftershocks being a reasonable strength of the original. (If they ever surpass the original, then the 'aftershock' is thereafter called the 'main shock' with the original 'main shock' renamed to a 'foreshock').
While the earthquake released pressure at the point of the earthquake, it also increased pressure at various other places along the fault, which is also believed to have increased the likelihood of the 'Big One' that has been expected for some time near Tokyo.
I'll defer to a geo-physicist if they want to jump in. :)
Huh. That's a really interesting story. But where the HELL is MSNBC's coverage of THIS: "Fukishima Radiation Taints US Milk Supplies At Levels 300% Higher Than EPA Maximums"
I live about 100mi from the Fukushima plant. These warnings are a joke. We have them in my apartment building, and when they go off the quake can be felt just 5-10 seconds later. Hardly enough to do anything worthwhile to "protect myself". Just another pathetic example of the typical Japanese approach of form over function. Sounds good, looks good but of no practical value.
I've found them useful: a few seconds is enough to open a window or to turn off the gas if I'm cooking. It's far better than nothing.
Up to 10 seconds is actually far more generous a warning timeframe than was initially given to the first field systems. I don't think you appreciate how unreliable earthquake prediction is in general. You can predict shooting stars with far better probability.