journal features

earthquake

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tokyo, 2009.08.10

We had a strong earthquake last night at around 20:30. It went on for quite some time, and really shook things. When we realized that it wasn't another little one (we haven't even had little ones of late) Mari scooped up Kenny and headed for the shelter of the dining table (a big solid wooden thing) while I ran for a flashlight and asked Joon, who was visiting, if he could ensure that the front door was open.

The quake was a 6.9 magnitude affair, some 340km underground. Quite impressive, actually.

Then overnight it began to rain.

This morning I headed down the hill to take Kenny to daycare and saw that between the earthquake and the rain, quite a lot of mud has been pushed up from the storm drains. A gentle reminder that the works of man are fragile, I suppose.

rand()m quote

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

—Roald Dahl