Background: Living in Japan one of the things you notice is how different your natural surroundings are. Coming from the east coast of the U.S., I was not used to Earthquakes waking me up at 4 in the morning. Or just turn on a nature show and you’ll hear about the Zumebachi, the vicious bees that are a couple inches long and supposedly have some poison associated with their sting.

The collection of articles today tries to capture the different threats from nature that are experienced in Japan. The newspapers each focused on a different phenomenon; some strange, some more common.

Asahi “Tadpoles Fall from the Sky” In Iwate Prefecture at about 6pm, while Kiyoko was busy working in the farm, she heard a sound like little bodies were falling from the sky. She looked around and found about 15 tadpoles laid out on her rice field.

In regards to the incident, Professor Azuma of conservation biology stated: “there’s a possibility the size of these tadpoles are about the size of Tokyo Daruma Frogs. When Herons fly through the sky, if they get spooked they might throw up their food.”

Nikkei “A 6+ Earthquake Would Take Down 7200 Buildings” The Nikkei claims that there is about 12,490 Middle and Elementary Schools in Japan. If an earthquake of 6+ were to hit, they claim that over half of those would collapse. They go onto explain that the buildings overall are about 67% earthquake resistant, with targets this year with a new budget of trying to up that to 78%.

Since the large Earthquake in China’s Szechuan Province, Japan has been taking a much more serious approach to earthquake preparedness.

Yomiuri “Floods and Lightning Threaten Tokyo” On a less serious note, the Yomiuri reports that Tokyo is in for a huge downfall of rain, which could be accompanied by lightning, flooding, and high winds. When this article had gone to press, the Tamagawa River had already gotten 50 mm higher.