For months now I've held in the back of my mind that there have been no major earthquakes recently. I think I've mentioned in on here before and it's come up lately with friends, normally accompanied with the baseless claim that most earthquakes happen in the morning. (This is of course crazy talk as earthquakes are notoriously random and the only reason they are felt more in the morning is because that's when people are laying still in a quiet house.) But I disgress, the months long trend was reversed at 4:34 AM this morning with a magnitude 4.9 earthqauke. Most of my co-workers reported waking up just seconds prior to the earthquake. I swear there was a slight shift or tilt 30 seconds before that woke me up. I had just enough time to lay there and wonder why I was awake at four in the morning. Then I felt the familar increasing vibration of an earthquake. I'm in the camp that earthquake's have a sound associated with them; like the biggest subwoofer you've ever heard. But this could be caused by a lot of things, such as the interaction of between the shifting ground and the house's structure. Today's was noteable for several reasons: It was on land. Located in the same mountain range that can be seen directly west of Shikaoi. And it was close. It's a humbling experience to think the earth routinely releases enough energy to dramtically shake a house 100km away. Even these smaller earthquake shake my house in such a ragdoll and god-like fashion I never want to be in the big one.
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