Come hell or high water — she’s actually expecting both — Nobue Kunizaki will be ready when the dreaded Tokai earthquake finally hits central Japan, whether in the next month or years from now.
More Top Picks Best E Ink Tablets For Reading
The 39-year-old former homemaker has built a new “ninja house” with gadgets and design improvements that she hopes will withstand the force of the next earthquake — for at least enough time for her family to escape.
Some in this suburban community outside Tokyo call her Japan’s Chicken Little, the Earthquake Lady or Calamity Queen, but Kunizaki is bettering her chances on an archipelago that suffers scores of temblors annually that are magnitude 5.5 or greater.
Her $600,000 home is connected to Japan’s vaunted earthquake early-warning system that can give up to a half-minute or more of notice before the major earth movement reaches a particular location. There are also secret fall-away doors, emergency running lights, indoor sprinklers and other sensors.
“I don’t think I’m paranoid,” she says. “Tokai is imminent. The earth is going to move in a big way. Now that I’m prepared, I feel I can try to live a normal life.”
The Tokai region, centered about 100 miles south of Tokyo, is the anticipated ground zero for Japan’s next Big One — which researchers say could reach a magnitude 8.0.
In contrast, Southern California’s most powerful modern earthquake was the magnitude 7.9 Fort Tejon temblor in 1857.