Earthquake part 2

The first earthquake was almost subtle compared to today’s quake.  You can compare and contrast between videos (and if you haven’t seen the video of the earlier quake, I’ll point out that the chandelier in this video is the *good* one of the two in our apartment...and they came with the apartment, ok?)

This quake measured 6.1 it appears. It lasted longer and started with a series of up and down movements, followed by much stronger side to side motion.  I’m not sure what if any seismic dampening this building has, but it was vibrating like a tuning fork.  The chandelier and the building seemed to find some kind of harmonic resonance as the pendulum action of the light continued to grow long after the actual earthquake seemed to have stopped.  If I hadn’t stopped it, I got the sense that it would have continued swinging for many minutes.

Unfortunately it sounds as though there was at least one fatality, and a number of people injured.  I don’t know of any significant major infrastructure damage.  I think they’ve got a pretty strong set of seismic requirements for all buildings here.  I don’t know if they shut down the high speed rail to check out the tracks and other systems, but I did see trains screaming by as I was out riding my bike this afternoon, so if it was down for inspection it didn’t last too long.