Shaking houses

At the moment our house is shaking reasonably regularly and the shaking is accompanied by nerve racking bangs. No, there are no earthquakes (although that is what I thought originally) and no, the kids aren't stomping around after a bad day (that was yesterday). It is actually the American army practicing their bombing skills in a town about 30 kms away. There is a lot of debate and coverage about the army bases in Okinawa, but the little towns that are used around here for firing practice are less well known. There seems to be many opinions about whether the American army should continue to be allowed to use the Japanese land for this purpose. I'm not going to get into a huge debate about it, but I do question the late night firing practice when people are already on edge about earthquakes etc. Both my children have decided to stay up a little later tonight until they finally call it quits for the night and we get some peace and quiet. The practicing will continue for 10 days.....
There were images on TV of the children in the town all taking taxis to school during the duration of the "occupation" of their town - just as a precaution. There were also images of some pretty good facilities which were built with the money the town receives from the "occupation". I guess there are good and bad sides to everything.
This video is of a different town, but I'm guessing it is the same kind of training they are doing.

This video is of the town near us during the training in 2010. A bit long, but you can flick through to get the idea.