The Japanese earthquake siren

Last week while I was out viewing hydrangea, the earthquake sirens went off. Right while I was taking a video of the hydrangea. At first, I was going to turn the video off. Then I thought, maybe it would be useful to others to hear what the Japanese earthquake sirens sound like. So I have made a reel on Instagram so you can hear a snippet of the siren. Word of warning; its quite loud and alarming...

This alarm goes off on the street's PA systems when there is a large earthquake, or when, as was the case with this one, there is a drill of the alarm system. There are PA megaphones all around the country. They are the same systems that play a recording each day to say the children are on the way home from school.  For years, they always had an earthquake siren drill on September 1st, which is the national disaster prevention day. But in my area they haven't done it since the pandemic started.

More often than not, there is some sort of advance warning from the town or city when they plan to play the siren as part of a drill. But if you don't live in that town or city you may not have seen it. That was the case for me last week when this drill went off. However, just before they played the siren, they did verbally declare that they were about to set them off. It still made me shudder, as it does every time I hear it!

Have you heard the sirens before? Did you know what they were the first time you heard them? I didn't, they frightened the life out of me!