What happened in my location? What happened where my loved one is located? These are natural questions that we haven’t been able to answer precisely thus far. Today, however, I found a searchable database on the Japanese side of the Japan Meteorological Agency website that can help us answer these questions, at least in terms of how bad the shaking was in your area or your loved one’s area.
http://www.data.jma.go.jp/svd/eqdb/data/shindo/index.php
The database is only available in Japanese but I think I can make the information accessible to those of you with an interest in how bad the shaking was in a particular area, even if you do not understand Japanese.
To make sense of this information, you need to understand the JMA Seismic Intensity Scale. Here’s the official explanation:
http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/inttable.html
And here’s an article about the scale that was published on the Japan Times website: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/21/national/impossible-remain-standing-japans-earthquake-intensity-scale/
Now, to explain the images I have attached to this post. For each location, I have search for every instance of 5 lower or above on the JMA scale for that location. The column on the far right shows the JMA intensity for the location. You can distinguish between 6 upper (6強) and 6 lower (6弱) by the color: burgundy for 6 upper and bright red for 6 lower. Similar, 5 upper (5強) is orange and 5 lower (5弱) is yellow.
If you click through the images, you can read a few notes I have added about each.
If you do not find your own location of the location of a loved one, please type a request for that information in a comment below. As soon as I can get around to it I will post an image for that location as a response to the comment.
– Kirk
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