[Eric in the Ozarks]

Don't know if the quakes were related but when we lived in Yokohama, these happened at the rate of two or three little ones a month and one or two big "up and down" potential window breakers each year.
When electric streetcars ran down the middle of the street, I recall watching one of these cars jump off the track with a shower of sparks from overhead power lines right in front of our house. The streetcar company's wrecker truck showed up and lifted the front of the streetcar back on its rails in about an hour.

[SirLinksalot]

I remember a quake of the same magnitude hitting Iran just a few years ago. In that quake, hundreds of houses collapsed and thousands died.

In Japan, no major building or house collapsed, and NO ONE DIED or was hurt.

This is the difference between an advanced and well developed country and a primitive one.