The report says that some 810,000 people could be looking for a toilet within the first few hours of such a quake.

I suppose I should also mention that about a 7.3 quake could send 12 million workers scrambling from their office cubicles and could prevent about 7 million of those from returning home.  Upwards of 4.6 million could end up seeking public shelter.

But back to toilets…

I had a bad experience when I was a kid that involved a toilet and two older students peering over the top of my stall, laughing as I anguished in pain from stomach pains.  It wasn’t a very pleasant experience.  In fact, it has essentially scarred me for life — I absolutely fear public restrooms, especially those in the States where stalls and doors don’t go from floor to ceiling.

Did I mention that I’m also a bit of a clean freak (perhaps a borderline OCD-case)?  Yeah, that doesn’t make things any easier for me either.

Fortunately, the public restrooms in Japan tend to be quite clean.  Some places even have pay-toilets that offer facilities that are cleaned on a more frequent basis.  I’ve only been to the pay-toilets at Tokyo Station so I can’t really comment on all of them, but they were nice — less traffic and cleaner than most regular restrooms.  I’ve also heard a lot of good things about Akihabara’s Oasis, but have yet to make use of them.

But I digress…

I love living in Japan.  It was probably the best thing to happen to me.  I do miss the States, but not really enough for me to want to return and live there…  Except perhaps when I hear news about major earthquakes that are supposed to be hitting Tokyo in the near future.

Source: Toilet shortage feared in case of big Tokyo quake