Kumamoto castle before the quake

On 14 April 2016 the castle looked like this.

 Kumamoto, Kyushu, March 2016.

Living Inside the Ring of Fire

The Ring of Fire (which includes the Philippines) almost surrounds the Pacific Ocean and stands for a region of huge seismic activities: 90% of the world's earthquakes and 81% of the world's largest earthquakes occur along this Ring.

Last weekend while staying in Laiya, Batangas we had a number of earthquakes. The highest measured 5.8/5.9 on the Richter scale and all occurred in the north of Mindoro some 50km away from where we stayed (see above). All happened at night and four times we ran out of our room into the darkness. It was quite a strange feeling since we had no electricity and the only points of references were the stars. Sounds romantic but wasn't. With such poor points of reference all shakes were felt much longer. Next time we will bring flashlights...

Photo below from Laiya, Batangas in October 2006.