By Nancy Baldwin
In my whole life I have never experienced this kind of intensity, although I have felt many earthquakes growing up in California and living in Japan for over 25 years.
I guess what was the most surprising about today’s series of quakes was that although the epicentre occurred a few hundred miles away from us, north of here and off the coast, we felt it just about as badly as they did up north. Its reverberations reached as far as Kansai.
Tokyo survived pretty much unscathed, but those poor folks north of us were hit very badly – plus the tsunami following the quake was just devastating.
The aftershocks continue: this has been going on for over nine hours now. The first quake was so long I can only best describe it as a combination of turbulence on an airplane mixed with the swirling of a washing machine. I work on the fifth floor of a seven-storey building. I cannot imagine what it was like for folks working in taller buildings.
When the first quake ended, there were some aftershocks and then another very strong one. We dived under our desks – I was shaking like a leaf. It just seemed to go on and on. But once that subsided, we left the building and started to head home.
However, when the mass of humanity that normally pours into town during the morning rush-hour tried to exit Tokyo without the benefit of the train-system infrastructure, all of the taxis were taken and there were huge lines for buses. No traffic was allowed on the expressways, and the roads were so backed-up with traffic that we just walked and walked with the crowds.
I was amazed at the calmness and civility of the people and of the local communities, in spite of the huge disruption we encountered today. Free vending-machine drinks, free public telephones to make phonecalls, businesses offering the flocks of homeward-bound pedestrians their restrooms if necessary.
It was like a walkathon with the masses. It took over three hours of walking, but we got home safely. Then, watching the TV, we saw the horror that still continues in northern Japan.
We live on the third floor of a three-storey “mansion” with no tall buildings around us, so unless something falls from the sky we should be OK. Our lifelines are intact – the cellphones are useless, but regular phones, our internet connection etc are fine. We were able to communicate with the kids through regular emails and Skype while walking home, so that was great. We were able to call our parents, and email our status on Facebook.
- Nancy Baldwin first moved to Japan in 1979, and currently lives in Tokyo where she works as a director of client solutions for Oak Associates.
A good source for information on casualty figures – which seem certain to rise considerably over the coming days – is nikkei.com. At the time of writing (late-afternoon Friday UK time), this reports Miyagi prefectural police saying they have found “200 to 300 bodies in Wakabayashi Ward” in a coastal area of the city of Sendai. For anyone with fears about family or friends who might have been caught up in the earthquake or the tsunami, Google is offering a useful contact service.
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