My mini-quake

The horror wrought by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami brought back a memory of my mini-quake while serving in the U.S. Army in Japan in the early 1950s.

I was stationed in Hokkaido, the northernmost island, and we were bunked in quonset huts. In case you don't know what a quonset hut is, its got a cement floor and a half-dome rounded metal roof. I had a single metal cot in a back room.

As I slept one night, my cot started jiggling across the floor. Although startled I nevertheless realized what it was -- a tremor strong enough to move a cot but not much else.

I went back to sleep and that was that for the rest of my tour.

Later, I went to Tokyo on R&R and stopped in at the famous Imperial Hotel built by Frank Lloyd Wright after a fire destroyed the original hotel in 1919. I believe Wright designed his hotel specifically to survive a major quake. It least, that's how I remember the story. By the way, it's still there and rated one of the finest hotels in the world.

Doesn't look at all like it did in 1954. You can Google it for a current view.