He was also speaking Japanese to others in the office, so perhaps he knew no one around him spoke English?

Is that a common response? (Op, not you), because as a kid that grew up on the San Andreas Fault, they taught us to get under our desks. But if you get under something in an earthquake, you are burying yourself alive. The best place to be, in an earthquake is outdoors.
My instincts would have been to start heading down stairs.

Edit:down voted for my "instincts " having grown up in earthquake zone.

They were on the 26th floor and even if he went outside he would have been surrounded by high rises. Best to just sit tight.

Dude at 1:30 just sipping his coffee. I wish I could be that chill.

Over a minute? Why did you not exit the building?

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That is terrifying, Greg.

Frank?

It’s not nationalism to say that the Japanese have better building codes than the US does. Spend some time there and you’ll quickly realize that

Shibuya, shibuya!

Reminding Americans that there's more to The Americas than just the USA is a surefire way to trigger another Jan 6th riot from the Gravy Seals.

We’ll I for one think Trudeau is still far and away better than a large swath of American leaders.

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There's been a couple times I've been sucked into a rabbit hole of Japan earthquake/tsunami videos... definitely grim and terrifying stuff

Definitely, but then that was the largest Japan as a whole has experienced for a very long time.

Is that still the biggest you've experienced, Greg?

If that happened in Europe we all would be dead.

Amazing ingeneering. After Turkish earthquake... it's incredible looking at the street and not seeing smoke and dust everywhere.

I can understand that, living on the fault line in the east bay of CA that was 30 years overdue at that point made us all very fearful of quakes even though we went through them frequently. The difference might have just been the age of construction of the area I lived in and the nature of the inevitable massive quake that was coming (still hasn’t hit, only getting stronger), vs modern building in an urban center with more regular large quakes. Thanks for the input!

Yes, the dystopian society in CA where there are no regulations and builders get to run wild.

It’s emblematic of how negative Reddit has become when you ask a genuine question about the cultural differences between regions and you are downvoted, and the discussion shifts to nationalism.

>>Why didn’t you evacuate the building…

Probably because Japanese building engineers take earthquake codes seriously- as the video capably demonstrates.

In the US? Well, if you’re close to an exit get out first. It’s a better place to discover if the contractor followed the rules or lobbied their way around them.

Japan and its buildings are no strangers to quakes. They definitely didn't expect it to be this bad but if you live in Japan for any substantial amount of time, you would definitely be used to quakes.

Why didn’t you evacuate the building during that first minute? As a former CA resident I am surprised by the lack of response from you and team members.

ಠ_ಠ

British Canadian permanent resident of Japan. Was working on the 16th floor of the Mark City building in Shibuya.

Who are you and where were you at the time?