The coming disaster in Japan

Shaken and stirred in Tokyo's quakes

Here's an ABC journalist's first hand account of the recent, relatively mild, Japanese earthquakes. He notes:

But thankfully it was not the much-dreaded Great Tokai Earthquake. That is the big one, the terrible tremor which hits central Japan about every 130 years.

The problem is, it is overdue.

The last Great Tokai Earthquake was in 1854 when a massive magnitude 8.4 quake struck.

More about the coming Tokai Earthquake can be found here.

It is, of course, a typically Japanese thing that when you go to the website of the Japanese Meteorological Agency page about the Earthquake Early Warning system, they have a cute little graphic for it:

If I am not mistaken, that would be based on the underground catfish that the Japanese folklore says causes earthquakes. Cute but deadly.

UPDATE: lots of information about the history of Japanese giant-earthquake-causing-catfish lore can be found in this essay.