This afternoon just after 4:30, we heard a low rumble and felt everything sway and tremble for about 15-20 seconds. It was strong enough to make you stabilize yourself, but not so powerful that people realized it right away.
We were at Open Campus Day at ISAS/JAXA, the Japanese Aerospace Agency’s mission control center for Jean’s X-ray telescope satellite, Suzaku. We were in the lobby of the building; the sheet glass handrails along the central staircase all wavered back and forth throughout the quake.
In the mean time, a bunch of train lines across the Tokyo region were shut down, which backed up human traffic, even to Machida, on the west side of Tokyo. [Of course, watching the news, it turns out that Yokohama, on our side of Tokyo Bay, and opposite the epicenter, registered at least a 5 on the Richter scale.]
Anyway, the only real effect we’ve had is having to heft the stroller up five flights of stairs at the hotel because the elevators aren’t working anywhere.
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the making of, by greg allen