I’m doing well in Miyazaki, Kyushu, and have been monitoring the news updates from our hotel room. I found a lot of comfort reading stories about the 11/3 earthquake so I decided to share some of my stories…It would be a type of “therapy” for me to talk it out here too…Please note that whatever I went through was nothing compared to those up North without heat, food, water, or a home.
When the earthquake struck
What was I doing just before the Big One came? I was typing away on my MacBook thinking about what to cook for dinner. It was Friday and because of my holiday in Melbourne, work had piled up and I was just looking forward to the weekend.
At a quarter to three, the apartment shuddered. I paused my typing, as I would when there are any noticeable tremors in Tokyo which is occasional. I just waited and looked out the window. The tremors seemed to have subsided so I actually went back to doing work. But just a few seconds later, the shuddering returned and the pots and pans on my stove rattled loudly. The dining table was trembling and I thought, “Should I be a scaredy cat and dive under the table?” I shook off my feelings of silliness and continued sitting where I was.
Then stuff started flying off the shelves, like my Beauty Box packaging, glass bottles on the kitchen shelves, and books etc. It was then I shot under the table and messaged the kangaroo in Sydney that a huge earthquake was happening. I stayed there for what seemed like a minute until the loud rattling stopped.
The office workers from the tall building behind my apartment came out looking bewildered. I, too, crawled out from under the table to go outside to take a look. I suddenly felt nauseous and dizzy but on hindsight, the swaying was still going on and I was trying to walk on unstable ground. It seemed peaceful outside so I went back in to type an update on Facebook with a racing heart. For ten minutes, there were no updates on Twitter or Facebook, so I resumed work.
Then my Facebook contacts started pouring in with updates on the earthquake. I wasn’t too fussed yet until I saw a friend’s video of how trashed his apartment was and others reported the same in their offices. That freaked me out because in my four-and-a-half years in Tokyo, I had never heard of such damage caused by earthquake tremors.
I surveyed my place and it was completely unscathed in terms of broken glass. I was able to neaten up everything in a jiffy and the bathroom had some fallen products but that was about it.
My friends started emailing to ask if I was okay and I knew that it was an unusual event. I don’t think I was scared until this point of time because they never email when there is an earthquake so this one was extremely serious.
I turned on the news and read Twitter and Facebook obsessively and within a space of two hours, the sirens went off and the emergency loudspeaker kept announcing stuff in Japanese and English, both of which I could not understand because of the exaggerated echo. I asked my friends if I should stay put and they said it was safer to be indoors at that point.
I had given up on focusing on work and made some dinner to eat and to have something “normal” to do.
Night time on 11/3
I felt really calm by night fall and even turned off the Japanese news for awhile. I chatted with the kangaroo a bit and it was a relief to hear his voice.
With the images of Tokyoites stranded without transport in major hubs like Shinjuku and throngs of office workers around the Imperial Palace stuck in my mind, I was chatting with various friends online about what had happened.
A friend who lives in Yotsuya pinged me to ask if I was okay. The aftershocks were kind of freaking me out again and I accepted his invitation to hang out with him and his flatmate. I put on a scarf and coat and walked into the night.
The streets were flooded with people walking and carrying conbini plastic bags filled with drinks and food. There were long lines at public phones because the mobile phone network was down. The roads were jammed and unmoving. By 9pm, Ginza, Hanzomon, and Oedo lines on the Tokyo Metro were back up. Even then many people had to walk for hours to get home because it was impossible to catch a bus or taxi or train anywhere.
My friends and I drank some chu-hi and ate snacks while following the news. It seemed so surreal…I was going to return home at midnight but there were several aftershocks and sirens going on so I decided to stay overnight at my friend’s place for company. I was really scared and couldn’t sleep much especially since there was another major aftershock at 4am which was followed by another emergency announcement.
The day after…
It was a gorgeous early Spring day and there was nothing unusual at 930am on that Saturday morning except there were many grim and tired looking souls packed into the subway. I learned later that the trains only started operating around 8am.
I was starving so I made myself some breakfast and was about to take a shower but the kangaroo called me in a panic to inform me about the nuclear reactors exploding in Fukushima, 250 km north of Tokyo. He had been in my ear to leave for Osaka for a few nights till the chaos died down but from my viewpoint in Tokyo, everything was fine except for the tremors that came every hour.
He insisted that I stock up on food and draw money from the bank in case there was mass panic and hoarding. I have to admit I thought he was paranoid and said I would do so to appease him. I postponed my shower and set about my weekly grocery run. I usually go on the weekends to do a big shop so I told myself this one was no different…
Crowded but orderly supermarkets
Weekends in Akasaka, my neighborhood, are usually very quiet because it is a hub for financial companies without many residential homes. However, this Saturday saw long winding queues in my local supermarket. It struck me that others were doing the same as me which alarmed me a little.
Many people were buying toilet paper and water, plus bread and other snacks. Fresh food was being bought too and the only strangeness going on was that all the local brands of mineral water were gone. I could only find the pricier stuff like Evian and Vittel which I bought too. There were no AA batteries anywhere – the tiny AAA and big ones were available though. I needed some AA ones for my torchlight because Tokyo Electric warned of rolling blackouts that might happen between 6-7pm. But I wasn’t too worried because my torch still worked fine.
I lugged my shopping cart home filled with fresh food – it did occur to me that if I were stranded without electricity for a few days, all this fresh food could not be cooked then I thought to myself, “Well,
I’ll just go raw then…No cooking needed!”
With the 6pm cut off in mind, I took a shower and prepared some food and did some work. The kangaroo was upset in Sydney that i would not consider moving out of Tokyo for the interim and pointed out that international news sources were posting inaccurate and sensationalist information.
Around 8pm I was actually ready for bed due to all the excitement and lack of sleep the night before. I was downloading some movies to watch but my Yotsuya friend pinged me again to see how I was. He invited me to his place but I said was fine despite the frequent aftershocks. I was feeling quite battered mentally and wanted some alone time. My family and the kangaroo were urging me to leave Tokyo which I thought was not necessary at that point.
Bedtime on 11/4: a major aftershock
I was watching the latest episode of Top Chef Season 8 when a big, long rumble ripped through Tokyo at 1015pm. I jumped online and my friend pinged me on Facebook to say it was a big one of magnitude 6 at Fukushima where the ailing nuclear reactors were. Fear filled my heart once again. By 11pm, his flatmate had invited him and me to his hometown in Karatsu, Kyushu, because his worried brother ordered him to return home.
By midnight, our Shinkansen tickets were booked and we agreed to meet at 510am on the Maranouchi line on the way to Tokyo station. The kangaroo and my family were relieved that I was departing for south Japan which is a safe distance from the reactors that were leaking radiation by then.
I simply could not sleep so I packed a bag with three days’ worth of clothes and cleaned the house. I always clean the house before I go off on a long trip.
At 430am, I left my cozy apartment for what seemed like an abyss of the unknown. Will I come back soon? Will Japan be alright? I felt remorseful for leaving my home and my numerous friends whom I wanted to contact but since it was in the dead of the night, I didn’t.
