[mewzilla]

What's the Shindo scale? Is that one of those seismic moment or moment magnitude dealies?

[struggle]

Japan has a different earthquake scale than the Richter scale. Shin - Do literally means Earthquake - Amount in Japanese.

A 5-6 is not enough to cause much damage in Japan, but it IS enough to throw objects from shelves and topple heavy objects.

[Physicist]

No, it's just a magnitude measurement. I forget how to convert, but the largest earthquakes in Japanese history (close to 9 on the Richter scale) measure a 7 on the Shindo scale. The Japanese report all their earthquakes using this scale.