Category: Various

How I lived the greatest earthquake in the history of Japan – Part 3

Post author By ageekinjapan
Post date March 22, 2011
1 Comment on How I lived the greatest earthquake in the history of Japan – Part 3

More and more people come to the park. I sit down in a rock next to some bushes with flowers, but just after sitting down I feel how the rock starts to vibrate. Trees and lamp posts around the park shake following the aftershocks that arrive every 10-20 minutes. We are still trying to use our cell phones or send e-mails, but we can’t. Somebody is able to get signal for a while and we get news that the tsunami has already arrived to the coast in the north, sweeping towns and cities. At the park we feel more secure that inside the building, but everybody looks more and more worried.

Around 5:30pm some of us decide to head back home. Trains are not running, they are all stopped, the rail companies employees are checking the railways to see if they are safe or need reparations. Many of my colleagues start to walk to head back home, but distances in Tokyo are huge, to some of them many hours of walk await. I head back home by bicycle but I soon have to stop and continue by foot; the streets are clogged with cars and sidewalks are flooded with pedestrians. Crowds slowly advance walking, calmly but with heads down, many are checking their cell phones trying to get signal. People are lining up to buy stuff in 24 hour shops and supermarkets.

Line of people waiting to use a public telephone, cell phones are not working.

Supermarkets are running out of food very fast.

After one hour and a half walking I arrive home. I live in a ground floor apartment, so the damages are not very important. Some books and plates have fallen to the floor, the tables have moved and my computer monitor has almost fallen to the ground but it is safe. I go online to check the latest news, I am terrified when I see the first images of the tsunami destruction.

Me and my group of friends were going to celebrate Carlos 32nd birthday and my 30th birthday. But Tokyo is paralyzed, there are traffic jams everywhere, trains are still not running and it’s impossible to get a taxi. Of course it is not the best moment to celebrate anything, we cancel our birthday party and postpone it for another day.

More posts about the March 2011 Earthquake:

Various

How I lived the greatest earthquake in the history of Japan – Part 2

Post author By ageekinjapan
Post date March 21, 2011
5 Comments on How I lived the greatest earthquake in the history of Japan – Part 2

We calm down as the tremors of the earthquake start to decrease. The water in the fish tank is running through the floor approaching our feet. I feel very dizzy, my hands and my jaw are shaking out of control.

My colleague Wada-san is the first one to stand up, even though we are still moving he can already keep his balance. He smiles at us, to cheer us up he says: “We need some beers!”. We laugh to keep from crying, a strange reaction after an extreme panic situation.

We all start to stand up. We go back to our desks, we look outside of the window. We see some smoke near Tokyo Tower. We can hear many sirens, the streets look frozen, the people is standing up, they don’t walk. All the cars are stopped. We are still not aware of how serious the situation is.

We check our cellphones, but we don’t have signal. We use the company wifi to check the news, we get news that the epicenter of the earthquake is located in the sea off the coast of Tohoku region and the magnitude of the earthquake is 8.9 (later it was confirmed that it had been 9.0). We are in a tsunami alert almost all over the country. Out building hasn’t stopped moving, 10 minutes have passed since it began to shake.

Some coworkers cleaning up the office after the earthquake

The elevators are not working, we go down the stairs and we see several cracks on the walls.

Even though the building is new and prepared to withstand big earthquakes, seeing cracks on the walls makes me worry. We go out to the street, people is walking as usual, cars are again circulating, we see a fire fighter truck pass by in front of us.

Seeing that everything is back to “normal”, we calm down a bit and we go back to our office. Big mistake! As we arrive to the 11th floor, a big aftershock starts. Again we are all on the ground under our tables, books fall down again from the shelves, again the water comes out of the fish tank, and everybody panics again, this time during two long minutes.

Lesson learned, we take what we need and we go out as soon as possible, this time using the emergency stairs, our “shelter” is this small park:

I calm down, I’m not shaking anymore but I feel that my body is hotter than usual. I’m thirsty but my colleague offers me a tea bottle that she has in her bag.

The funny smiles of everybody after “surviving” the earthquake start to disappear; everybody starts to look worried and sad. Everybody is trying to contact their family with their cellphones, but there’s no signal….

More posts about the March 2011 Earthquake:

Various

How I lived the greatest earthquake in the history of Japan – Part 1

Post author By ageekinjapan
Post date March 13, 2011
21 Comments on How I lived the greatest earthquake in the history of Japan – Part 1

I work in the 11th floor of a 12-floor building built by Shimizu Corporation in 2009; the building is supposed to withstand very powerful earthquakes. Shimizu Corporation is one of the world leaders in earthquake-resistant construction technologies.

I was working in the 11th floor of this building.

We were in a meeting room in the 11th floor, usually we finish our weekly meeting on Fridays at 15:00, but yesterday at 14:40 we were already done. I take my laptop and go back to my desk that is next to a window with these views:

I sit down and gaze at the immensity of Tokyo to relax and have a break after the meeting. Suddenly I feel like I’m dizzy, but it’s not me, we are moving, it is an earthquake. My chair starts to move little by little, smoothly. I look back and the computer monitors and the desks are moving. We are not afraid, we are supposed to be used to earthquakes, we all wait for it to stop. Usually after some moments of shaking everything goes back to normal. But this time after around 30 seconds of small shakings, things starts to get ugly.

I look outside again, the skyscrapers are vibrating. Antennas and cables are moving violently. The whole Tokyo is shaking in front of me. Not only it doesn’t stop, but the strength of the earthquake starts to increase. Curtains violently hit the windows. The books on my desk fall, my computer monitor falls as well, desk drawers open themselves. I start to get really worried. Suddenly I realized that all my colleagues are hidden under their tables except our vice president who is standing and tells us with a forced smile: “Don’t worry, this building uses the latest technology of Shimizu Corporation”. His words don’t calm me down at all and, I don’t know why, I stand up like him and hold my desk tightly.

The building has been shaking for the last 2 minutes, now the movements slow down a little bit during some instants and I take the opportunity to go out running to the lounge that is near the emergency stairs. Nobody is moving except me, everybody is under their tables except our vice president who is still standing up holding his computer monitor. On my way, I jump over two bookshelves that have fallen, leaving many books scattered around the floor.

I arrive to the lounge where there are also tables and colleagues hiding under them. I stop and feel how another huge shaking is coming, the building is moving like crazy. This time I can’t keep standing up, the strength of the earthquake is too much, not only everything is moving from side to side, but also up and down! my feet lose contact with the floor, I feel powerless, I feel panic, I feel the power of our planet.

I see the legs of a coworker, she is hiding under a table. My instinct or maybe my fear makes me jump to the floor next to her. She sees me coming, and with one hand strongly holds my leg, and with the other hand she grabs my left hand. I feel more secure, but not for long. In that moment we both think: “This is the end”. We hug each other strongly, I close my eyes because I’m very scared. Every second is an eternity, now the final showdown is coming. We are shaking like if we were in a roller coaster. Even while sitting on the ground, the vibration of the building moves us around the floor. The noise of things falling is intense, the water of the fish tank reaches the ceiling making it wet.

The worst is over, but the earthquake hasn’t gone, the water of the fish tank is all over the place, making the books that are on the ground wet, all the building is still shaking but the earthquake is finally coming to an end. We open our eyes, we smile. But at the same time that I smile, two tears fall from my eyes. My hands are shaking, my jaw as well, I can’t control them. My coworker is much calmer than me, she says to me that the worst is over, that we are OK. I breath deeply and calm down. I think: “We, humans, are weak and something that won’t last long in the universe”. My coworker tells me: “I thought I was going to die, I don’t know why, but I felt peace in my interior”. Another two tears escape from my eyes.

Tomorrow I will continue writing my experience, until then, you can follow me on Twitter (I tweet mostly in Spanish or Japanese)

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