You may of heard in the news of two earthquakes plus multiple aftershocks in striking the city of Kumamoto on Kyushu island. The first earthquake which was recorded as a magnitude 6.5 struck near the city on Thursday evening. The second quake which hit a fault line out to sea from Kumamoto struck early this morning and was about 30x stronger at magnitude 7.3. This second earthquake was so strong that even here over 500km away our local city's seismograph registered a magnitude 2 tremor.

Most of my wife's family live on Kyushu island in Miyazaki and Kagoshima prefectures about 100-150km from Kumamoto city. As far as we know everyone in her family is safe. We got a text message from our sister-in-law yesterday informing us that everyone was OK.

Kumamoto was the first Japanese city I got explore on my first visit to Japan. We arrived late in the day at Fukuoka and stayed the night there. Early the next day we headed south to meet my future in-laws. We had a five hour wait between trains in Kumamoto so we spent a bit of time exploring the city visiting Kumamoto Castle (pictured, which has been damaged by both quakes) and Suizenjikoen (a famous garden).

I remember meeting helpful and warm hearted people as we looked around the city. One particularly memorable experience was the young family we spoke to and took a photograph of who were eating their KFC lunch sitting on some ancient stone steps. They had a boy who was about 9 years old at that time, he'd be about 28 now. Another strong memory was nearly missing our connecting train due to getting the wrong tram, and the very cheerful taxi driver who got us to the station on time.

Please keep the people in Kumamoto in your thoughts and prayers. If you'd like to donate or volunteer, please consider going through CRASH Japan (Christian Relief Assistance Support Hope) as they are one of the most trustworthy groups involved in disaster relief in Japan. They work together with local churches and other local community organisations to make sure the help gets where it's needed most.