from a friend....

Well, that wasn't the greatest night of my life. Thanks for the
thoughts and we're all fine here. Power was only restored 45 minutes ago
after being out for about 21 hours. They cut the power immediately to about
8 million houses. They didn't in one place and 5 sq km of houses went up in
flames. Apparently the tsunami that hit Fukushima prefecture was 7.3 metres
high and washed a complete village out to sea. Our house has suffered in
that large internal cracks have appeared but I'm amazed that it's still
standing at all. When it became clear that anything that wasn't already on
the floor soon would be, I evacuated the house and was standing on the road
outside in the same manner as a surfer stands on a surfboard. Basically, in
the past 21 hours we have had about 40 earthquakes, of which 4 were severe
and 1 was extremely severe. In fact, they're still going on as I type.

In my time in Japan, that is my 70th earthquake. When I was a whole
lot younger I once said that I would like to experience a hurricane and an
earthquake. I think I'll pass on that hurricane......