Earth Moves

I felt my first big earthquake the other day. Someone later told me it was above 6.0 on the Richter Scale. I was asleep and woke up to my whole building shaking. I confess I wasn't too concerned. It was the biggest earthquake I'd ever felt, but my tiredness seemed more pressing and I quickly returned to sleep. Apparently, there were 3 big earthquakes in Ota that night. I only felt the one though. No damage to report other than my fallen cutting board.

Yesterday at elementary school we had an earthquake drill. The idea was that an earthquake had just happened and a fire had been started at the school. The whole student body ran from the building (and they actually ran! no pretense of being able to calmly walk away from a disaster here). They all wore their bicycle helmets and gathered at the monkey bars at the back corner of the school yard.

While the drill may have been useful to them, I still have no idea what I would do in an earthquake if I were awake enough to consider the possibility of escaping. I don't have even have a bicycle helmet.