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  • Hacker News
  • Does anyone know if this also affects South Korea?
    by vaylian
  • I was told that some people in Busan, the Korean city nearest to Japan, felt the earthquake and even felt dizzy.
    by barosl
  • Never felt anything in SK
    by GreyMolecules
  • Every once in a while (not every year) there are minor earthquakes you can feel in some parts of SK, like Busan: the ground tremors a bit, some shelves wobble... that's the most I've ever noticed.
    by unsupp0rted
  • Given it’s barely even felt outside of Kyushu (JMA 3, the dark blue dots, is "dishes may rattle, some people walking outside notice") that seems unlikely.
    by masklinn
  • Fukuoka here (about 100km from Kumamoto) and definitely felt it, so it must have been a real big one in Kumamoto itself.

    My friend was driving home from work closer to Miyazaki and didn't feel the quake, but had huge hailstones hitting his car. There's a rapture going on or something

    by shoobiedoo
  • Was looking at webcams here (https://tokyo.fyi) but realized this is further south.
    by mrwaffle
  • Found a few online webcams, but I'm not really sure I saw the earthquake. People didn't even seem to stop on the webcam I was watching. Lots of cars on the bridge afterwards though while before it there were much less, idk
    by ibaikov
  • United States Geological Survey https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=21.04224...

    Live NHK-WORLD-NEWS feed (English-language commentator) https://www.youtube.com/live/f0lYkdA-Gtw?si=Sc8ZbldZUQESiJQZ

    by ButlerianJihad
  • The HNK stream can also be viewed at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/live_tv/ with English dubs. The youtube feed looks to have stopped for now.
    by Jn2G3Np8
  • GPS reference data shows the ground has been displaced as much as 84 centimeters https://news.web.nhk/newsweb/na/na-k10015189191000
    by kalleboo
  • Similar strength and location as the 2016 one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Kumamoto_earthquakes
    by canpan
  • I was camping/bike packing in Kyushu when this happened! I think I was in Miyazaki on the 14th when we felt the first shock. It was the first earthquake I’d experienced. The multi-story hotel we stayed at felt like it was gyrating in a circular fashion.

    Then my pal and I were camping by the Utagenka Bridge, east of Kumamoto for the main shock!

    by alexissantos
  • I hope everyone is safe in Kumamoto. In my area, we have been repeatedly warned that a major earthquake called the Nankai Trough is likely to occur in the last few years or decades, so I am very scared of big earthquakes happening in other areas as well.
    by 41d
  • I've heard there's been a lot of redevelopment in Nagoya, in preparation for a possible future earthquake from the Nankai Trough.

    Exactly one month ago, there was almost consecutive daily earthquakes in Kantō region. Always a good reminder the whole country lies on seismically active fault lines.

    by koito17
  • To be a bit more precise, the Nankai ("South Sea") Trough is a tectonic subduction zone to the south of Japan, roughly the entire length from Izu to Kyushu:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nankai_Trough

    And Nankai megathrust earthquakes are those caused by plate movement there:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nankai_megathrust_earthquakes

    Statistically major earthquakes occur here every 90-200 years, and the last was in 1946.

    by decimalenough
  • Kumamoto is barely finished rebuilding from the last quake, you can still see cracks in structures as you drive down the road. This is really horrible; not to mention the city is already beginning to depopulate as the youth move north to Fukuoka.
    by DiscourseFan
  • I wouldn't let this get in the way of going there though. Kumamoto is a very nice prefecture to see. They will rebuild (again) and it'll continue to be a great place.
    by spike021
  • It's my understanding that small to medium sized cities (and rural areas) depopulating is going on now throughout almost all of Japan. One of the things that really surprised me recently is how low the cost of real estate is for an older, normal middle class home in some sparsely populated areas of Japan.

    Apparently the declining population and younger people not wanting to live in their parents' rural countryside home is having a significant effect on property values.

    by walrus01
  • I'm living in the South of Japan, it was a 4 intensity where I am (about 90km) from the epicenter. Luckily there was only some light shaking and nothing fell over here.
    by kuczmama
  • Glad to hear it is not too terrible where you are
    by smb06
  • Hope the areas around you were just as lucky, thanks for the update!
    by sevenzero
  • In parts of Kumamoto Prefecture, it registered 7 on the Japanese shindo (seismic intensity) scale, which reflects the amount of ground shaking at a particular location. The shindo is a better indicator of the likely amount of damage than the magnitude is. A shindo of 7 is extremely strong [1].

    Ten minutes ago (at around 17:15 p.m. Japan time), NHK was reporting that there were many emergency calls coming in from Uki City, where shindo 7 was recorded, but that the extent of the damage or injuries was not yet known.

    There have also been many aftershocks, including some strong ones, and tsunami warnings.

    [1] https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/jishintsunami/jishin...

    by tkgally
  • A 7 on the scale from 0 to 7.
    by zeeZ
  • English link on the shindo scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_se...
    by sph
  • NHK TV is showing extensive damage including fallen smokestacks at Nippon Paper Factory facility, bridge road separation, fallen bridge lane, road cracks, fire, water coming out of drainage etc. It was a huge earthquake and will take some time to assess the damage.
    by akg_67
  • This was my first real earthquake since moving to Kyushu. After it stopped I looked it up, and the first place to post the epicenter and shindo was NERV's twitter...which is named after the org from the anime and has an anime screenshot as its banner (https://x.com/EN_NERV). Apparently it's a real disaster information service, though.

    It's been mentioned before but maybe interesting to some (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38835419).

    by goginko
  • Somewhat unrelated but how did you find the process of moving to Japan (assuming you emigrated there)
    by SomaticPirate
  • Get the app
    by bamboozled
  • The Nerv app is quite good. It usually gives real-time alerts faster than the official sources.

    You can even have the weird experience of being notified of an earthquake, watching the shockwave move outward from the epicenter, and feeling it as it passes.

    by timr