No News was Good News
2005.03.21 4:54

No news - but there was a news...It really turned out to be a good news.
We were hit by an earthquake, as VOA, BBC had been reporting it was occurred in southern Japan - where we live, magnitude 7, but because epicentre of the earthquake was 52km far off the coast, only 7 people were wounded.
Fixed telephones were disconnected, and small amount of oil leakage off the port was seen but three nuclear power plants nearby were safe. compared with the size of magnitude 7, the Richter scale was considerably lower -6 weak, so actually there was only scarce damage. So no news was really a good news.
We can read the record of earthquake occurred in our area back 1,300 years ago in the book called Japan Chronicles, and next one was 107 years ago, 1898 - its size was less than this time, presumably M6, the earthquake of this time was the first since the measurement of earthquake started 1923 or 4, for the first time in 80 years.
What can be seen in surface is scarce though there are many cracks inside the structure of constructions. Just one swing causes us immeasurable economic loss, but any way there was no human loss.
The last and most important good news was I didn't have to work. Because our office was closed, I was able to take a jolly good holiday -vernal equinox -I was supposed to work today, really no news was a good news.