Japan’s earthquake warning system does not help those at the epicenter | Features

Help me diagnose the car problem I had been driving for 2 1/2 hours when suddenly my 2018 Honda Freed started shaking around the road. All wheels and tires were in good working order, and I had the steering wheel perfectly straight.

However, the car began to swing left and right, running further back than the hatchback.

This conundrum might catch up with the CarTalk boys, because it turns out I had no car issues at all. The real culprit was the magnitude 6.5 earthquake.

You may have heard about the earthquake that hit Japan on May 5th. It is known as the “2023 Ishikawa Earthquake”. Ishikawa is the prefecture where I live.

Fortunately, my hometown of Nonoichi is a two-and-a-half-hour drive south of Suzu, the city above the epicenter. Unfortunately, I was driving 2 1/2 hours north when it hit.

My wife’s grandmother is a longtime resident of Suzhou, and we were visiting her over the weekend. The Fred was fully laden: my wife, an infant, my wife’s parents, myself, and baggage worth five persons.

Concerned granny lives on top of the mountain. Accordingly, a few minutes from her house, we found ourselves on a remote, winding mountain road, overgrown with forests on both sides. To the left of the road the mountainside dropped sharply to the shoulder, and to the right it fell again, just as steeply.

Here the car started to roll over.

My first thought was that we were being attacked by a 90 mph wind. However, the trees weren’t walking around, so I quickly ruled that out.

My next thought was that a tire had blown. But the car was jumping more than it was shuddering, so that couldn’t be the case.

My wife later told me that she thought I was rocking the wheel back and forth as a joke. I’m a wimp by nature, so this isn’t something I would do on a mountain pass.

The surrounding car mystery was finally solved when all four of our cell phones went off simultaneously with the earthquake alarm.

As you might imagine, Japan’s earthquake warning system is top notch. They have a lot of them, so they put money into it.

In fact, it can be said that Japan is the most earthquake-prone country in the world. There are several ways to determine who is number one, which is interesting in itself.

The USGS writes that Japan is the country where we detect the most earthquakes. Part of the reason is because, yes, Japan has a lot of them, but the other part is because Japan has the largest network of earthquake sensors in the world.

With so much earthquake detection equipment, Japan actually detects most earthquakes.

However, Indonesia must have more earthquakes. It’s in the same seismically active region of the world as Japan, but it has several times the land area (more land for earthquakes), and its islands extend a greater distance.

The difference is that there are far fewer seismic stations in Indonesia than in Japan, so they simply don’t catch every little jolt.

Meanwhile, per square kilometer, the USGS believes Indonesia, Tonga or Fiji are most prone to earthquakes.

Then there is the issue of death and historical destruction. Countries with a long history have simply been around longer to register their natural disasters. If you’re talking about the places that have had the most earthquakes in the historical record, the USGS puts them between China, Iran, and Turkey.

Regardless, Japan is a top notch place for earthquakes, and they’ve developed some great warning technologies in response to this fact.

You may be wondering, “But you have several seconds left in the earthquake before the alarm sounds. What kind of early warning is this?”

That’s right, but things are different in the epicenter.

The earthquakes were completely unpredictable – the warning systems could only engage once the roar started. Earthquakes start at their epicenter, so the system won’t be fast enough to warn people there. They feel the vibration at the same time as the sensors.

But earthquakes then radiate at a speed of a few kilometers per second, and the system can beat that with a long shot.

All this means that people who live tens or hundreds of kilometers away hear the alarm with precious seconds enough to take cover.

Any warning can be invaluable.

The only fatality in the 2023 Ishikawa earthquake occurred at the epicenter, where warnings come after the fact. Local media reported that a 65-year-old man fell from a ladder while renovating his roof. He died in hospital later that day.

A dear friend of mine, Mark, was in similar circumstances when the earthquake struck. He was standing in the bed of his truck, working on the edge of his roof. He was handling tools and lumber several feet off the ground when his cell phone rang the alarm.

The main difference was its location, about 100 kilometers from the epicenter. Mark told me he had about 20 to 30 seconds to get out of the truck, find his wife and son inside the house, and regroup with them in a safe place.

For those lucky enough to be some distance away, earthquake warning systems should save countless lives, simply by giving people a chance to drop what they’re doing and take cover.

I know you are still worried about your grandmother. Despite being directly over the epicenter, it escaped with limited damage. A framed picture was broken, some boards were loosed and a few bits of plaster fell off the walls.

Lucky for her, a few minutes later a group of people arrived at her place to help her clean up.

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