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We'd been living in our brand new home for 2 weeks when the first of 2 killer quakes hit our city . I'd experienced myriad quakes in various parts of Japan during my 30 years of living here , but nothing like these . I really thought it was the end of the world when that first quake struck : the house rocked and shook that strongly . I'm still in a bit of a shock so forgive brevity at this time . My wife and I survived unscathed , but eveything inside the house was destroyed . It'll be...

TOKYO (AP) — A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 struck southern Japan on Thursday evening, collapsing walls and a number of houses. There are no immediate reports of casualties.

The vessel is the first of its kind to have been discovered relatively intact and dates from a series of attempts by Kublai Khan, emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, to subjugate Japan between 1274 and 1281. Researchers have previously only been able to recover anchor stones and cannonballs from the scattered wrecks of the Mongol fleets and they believe that this latest find will shed new light on the maritime technology of the day. The warship was located with ultrasonic equipment about 3 feet beneath the seabed at a depth of 75 feet. The archeological team, from Okinawa's University of...

/begin my translation Volcano in Kyushu of Japan Erupts Again... Spewing Gas and Ashes According to NHK Broadcast in Japan, a volcano in Southern Kyushu has erupted again on Mar. 13 after silent for a month. The eruption sent up gas and ashes 4,000 meter high in the sky. Kyushu had volcanic eruption on Feb. 11 and 24, and has had 10 eruptions since January, and there has been fear that a big eruption is imminent. /end my translation

One evening 60 years ago this past week, two friends and I got drunk. This was the day the official surrender of the Japanese Empire was broadcast. Now, crowds in London might have cheered the end of war in Europe, and maybe they were celebrating the fall of Japan on Broadway. Where we were, I do not remember anybody cheering. It had been a long war, and we were tired. I was then platoon sergeant of a roughhouse, special 72-man separate platoon. "(Sep)" in our designation meant we could operate independently. We were over strength and carried two officers. I...

Hit 20 minutes ago ...Scary ...we're ok ...Fukuoka hit hardest ...magnitude 7 ... more later ...