Good luck, the Sapporo Chitose airport is closed for inspection of both runways.
BTW, you are safer in hotel than outside. No need to stay in lobby, go to bed, just protect your head. I experienced much bigger one in Sapporo in 2018.
When I moved to SF, someone told me that the three most important things you can do for earthquake safety are:
- make sure nothing can fall on you when you're in bed (no mounted artwork above the headboard; no lamps etc on side tables that are high enough to fall on you)
- make sure you have footwear in your bedroom, so you can be mobile if there's broken glass everywhere
- store extra drinking water somewhere (I used a 6-gallon carboy that I periodically refilled)
Probably there are other good things to do, but all those made a lot of sense to me. Most of us spend more time in bed than in any other fixed location, so making sure the bed is a safe place rings true. And water is life.
Keep in mind that this is a major metropolitan area in a state that has a history of earthquakes. You can expect state level response (and federal as well) within the same day. Their main priority will be water, and elements exposure.
Sf fire department has also a pdf with what you should have in an at home emergency kit. It's some simple things you can get in one trip to a camping store and Walgreens. https://sf-fire.org/media/794/download?inline
I also recommend SF people consider joining NERT: neighborhood emergency response team. Disaster after disaster should teach us the opposite of what you argue in terms of response: in fact it's more likely that the scale of people affected will quickly overwhelm resources, and the existence of choke points will severely limit movement of people and resources, especially if infrastructure is damaged and people are flooding out of the city. That can be mitigated by having locals trained to help facilitate emergency response efforts. It's less "pulling people out from under bookshelves" and more "help managing the bureaucracy of the fire department," forms on forms on forms! Though the training does involve pulling someone out from under a bookshelf. It's a week long and quite fun!
Modern buildings like hotels are built to withstand earthquakes of some magnitudes. Wouldn't count on that at a local construction site or a worn down house you might pass on the street.
That "worn down house" might be good until "upper 6". Beyond that it all depends on when it was built and the associated construction standards at the time.
Japan has had earthquakes forever. Their building regulations mandate things like isolation and dampers.
It all stems from an earthquake in 1923 in Yokohama which killed 140,000. Since then Japan's has over time developed some of the strictest seismic standards.
Sure, in the middle of a magnitude 9 earthquake I'd rather be in the middle of a suburban golf course (as long as it is far from any coastal tsunami) than any building, but I don't spend the majority of my time outside.
Two issues:
1. If you're making this choice during an earthquake, "outside" is often not a grassy field but rather the fall zone for debris from whatever building you're exiting.
2. If the earthquake is big/strong enough that you're in any real danger of building level issues, the shaking will be strong enough that if you try to run for the outside you're very likely to just fall and injure yourself.
The main two ways people get injured in earthquakes (at least in Japan) are a) gas fires b) things falling on them. And being outside but near buildings is a good way for things to fall off those buildings onto you.
I am visiting India. The app wasn’t installed automatically. I received the SMS telling me to install the app but I am using an Indian sim borrowed from a friend. So I figured I got the SMS because of Indian sim. My wife didn’t receive sms as she is using Airalo esim data service.
I didn’t know the SMS was legit or not and I just marked it as spam. The challenge I have found with mobile in India is the excess of sms spam. Also the sender is always some cryptic alphanumeric characters so authenticity is difficult to judge.
I actually prefer content style of Japanese websites. I get all the relevant info on one screen instead of having to scroll/click thru tens. The western style websites are very inefficient and hide info (feels scammy with lack of info).
There are subreddits dedicated to these kind of topics, for example /r/AmerExit /r/movingtojapan /r/expats (that I know of) with wealth of info. I am sure there are dedicated Facebook groups too. You most likely will find people and orgs that can help with migration in such targeted groups. As I understand, most desirable countries have seen multi-fold increase in inquiries and applications from US.
> Does, which what I think you are getting at, the law apply to a head of state?
I don’t know if he will exempt as head of state, but as ordinary US citizen he will be paying taxes to US as his income exceeds FEIE exemption threshold.
Toxicity of fluoride: critical evaluation of evidence for human developmental neurotoxicity in epidemiological studies, animal experiments and in vitro analyses https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7261729/
/r/AskEconomics is a good subreddit for such topics, mostly due to top level replies being highly referenced and vetted. Check it out for informed discussions.
IMO, US is a unique case as the biggest consumer, importer, military and financial power. All these economic concerns about debt, trade deficit, inflation etc is just election year rhetoric that will die down once new admin is sworn in (may be this is my prediction for 2025).
> Chitose (pop. 98k), though remote, is about 45 minutes by train -- with frequent service -- from Sapporo (pop. 2 mil), which is a fairly big city.
> I can see a young family living close to Sapporo, but parents working at TSMC.
The Chitose factory is not being built by TSMC, it is a Rapidus venture (IIRC Toshiba/Kioxia is one of the partners). They just received delivery of first EUV from ASML this week.
No one with young family will live in Sapporo, too far specially during 5 months of winter when train disruptions/cancellations are frequent due to excessive snow/blizzards. For example, just this week, every day JR trains were cancelled and/or fewer trains were in operation, it snowed every day and temperature below zero.
Most permanent workers will likely live between Kita Hiroshima (Ohtani's Japanese Pro baseball team new stadium located there) in the north and Tomakomai in the south.
Sapporo population is less than 2 millions and declining (1,969,058 in March 2024 declined from 1,972,381 in April 2022). All municipalities within Hokkaido prefecture have declining population, only exception recently was Eniwa (near Chitose) where population increased by couple of dozen people, increase attributed to enrollment of international students in the area after lifting of COVID restrictions.
> The other TSMC facility in Kumamoto (pop. 738k) on the other hand is 2 hours from the nearest big city, Fukuoka (2.5 mil). Kumamoto is actually a less tenable location for talent. Yet things seem to be working out (the current workers there are mostly Taiwanese expats though).
Kumamoto is actually better/preferred location for Taiwanese expats, from proximity to Taiwan and warmer weather perspective, only little over an hour away from Fukuoka by Shinkansen. In comparison, Hokkaido is too cold and isolated, no high speed rail link to Chitose/Sapporo area or to mainland (Honshu).
Source: Live in Sapporo, also have lived in Ottawa, Toronto, and Seattle; was approached earlier this year by someone on HN for onsite role with a Rapidus US supplier.
I am currently on my third client in last 4 years from HN who wants to be hired thread. One very good client, stayed 18 months with them, significant equity appreciation until now; a very bad “deadbeat” client who still owes me $8K in back wages (6 months overdue); and my current client of 4 months, so far so good.
One thing I learnt is to request HN username and review their post history, and consider suspicious the ones who claim not having one or not participating in HN discussions.
BTW, you are safer in hotel than outside. No need to stay in lobby, go to bed, just protect your head. I experienced much bigger one in Sapporo in 2018.
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