``It is a big earthquake. This building is swaying wildly,'' an announcer repeated at a TV station in Niigata Prefecture. Watching the screen, I could see the set and its equipment swaying badly at the station, as described by the announcer.

In Tokyo, we felt the first thudding minor tremors dozens of seconds later, and then big and lengthy horizontal sways followed suit.

A news ticker appeared at the bottom of the TV screen, reporting that the earthquake had registered an intensity of upper 6 on the Japanese scale of 7. Reading that, I recalled images from the Niigata Earthquake of 40 years ago, one of the most disastrous quakes that have hit Japan since the end of World War II.

I especially remember the billows of black smoke filling the sky and the long bridge that snapped and fell into the Shinanogawa river, a major waterway in Niigata.

Later Saturday, I learned that the the epicenter was close to Ojiya, an interior city located away from the Sea of Japan, and that there were three strong tremors that registered an intensity of upper 6.

I worried that the houses and precarious slopes that had withstood the first tremor might have given in to the following tremors at one sweep.

The news that the bullet train Toki jumped the tracks of the Joetsu Shinkansen Line struck me as unbelievable for a moment.

Since regular service began on the nation's first bullet train line, the Tokaido Shinkansen Line, in 1964, the year when the Niigata Earthquake struck, I had never heard of a derailment involving a Shinkansen train.

I learned later that the derailed superexpress did not overturn. Still, it is easy to imagine how horrified the passengers aboard the Toki were.

In the case of a natural disaster, the worst damage often occurs in areas that are the least accessible. Given this possibility, I prayed that the police and firefighters or the troops from the Self-Defense Forces would reach the most stricken areas as soon as possible to begin rescue activities.

What is viewed as the oldest record of an earthquake in Japan can be found in ``Nihon Shoki,'' known as the Chronicles of Japan. An imperially commissioned work, this is the nation's oldest ``authentic'' history.

An entry refers to a temblor that struck the province of Kawachi, now part of Osaka Prefecture, in July of the fifth year of Emperor Ingyo's reign, the equivalent of August in 416 when the lunar-solar calendar adjustment is made. Old documents show that the Kawachi earthquake that struck more than 1,500 years ago was followed by nearly 10,000 quakes in later years. (All this is according to an Iwanami paperback titled ``Shin Jishin-no Hanashi'' that translates roughly as ``New tales about earthquakes.'')

It may not be too far-fetched to say that this country is destined to suffer from earthquakes. Nothing can stop them from occurring, and there is no hope that their coming can be predicted accurately.

But it is possible to keep the damage from spreading if people join their hands quickly.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 24(IHT/Asahi: October 26,2004) (10/26)