A regional daily journalist missed being at the epicentre of a deadly earthquake in Japan by a matter of hours.
Swindon Advertiser reporter Daniel Angelini passed through the city of Osaka, close to where a quake struck on Monday, claiming at least five lives.
Daniel, pictured, is spending two weeks in Japan on holiday with friends, and passed through Osaka railway station a few hours before the disaster.
He told the Advertiser he could feel the tremors more than a hundred miles away in the city of Okayama.
Said Daniel: I didn’t know what was happening. I woke up in the middle of the night and the whole room was shaking.
“It was only slight at first, then after a few seconds everything shifted from side to side and I realised I was experiencing an earthquake.
“I couldn’t believe it. I’d never been in a situation like that before. The friends I’m travelling with were just as shocked.
“We’d been in Osaka just a few days earlier and were very glad we weren’t there last night. If we’d felt the quake as far away as Okayama I dread to think what it would have been like at its epicentre.”
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
I narrowly missed being burnt alive by the Hawaiian volcano by virtue of the fact I was in England at the time. True story.
Report this comment
Yep, Daniel and Richard were lucky. I was in my London living room with tea and Digestives, watching telly, when that Icelandic volcano blew so hard that flights across Europe were cancelled. My mate Roger missed out on a Hamburg business trip. My local paper will probably be interested in this come to think of it.
Report this comment
What a lucky escape! It reminds me of the first time I drove over the Humber Bridge in June 1981. Had I attempted the same a year earlier I would have undoubtedly drowned as the bridge wasn’t complete then.
Report this comment
I missed the San Francisco ‘quake of 1906. By decades. I hadn’t been born. Damn. If only.
However, I can image the hysteria in the Swindon Advertiser when the sudden blinding WTF! moment struck as they realised they had someone local in situ!
Report this comment
Some really ludicrous (and unfunny) comments on this story. Are people seriously saying that if someone from their newsroom, or even just from their patch, was on holiday somewhere where a major breaking news story was happening, they wouldn’t run a story about it? Really unfair to criticise the Swindon Advertiser for something virtually every local newspaper does.
Report this comment
I narrowly missed the bus today.
Report this comment