Tōhoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster

Recollections from one member in August 2011.

We’re calling it “the new normal”.

I was at the school where I work when the quake hit. It started off like any other quake – we get them all the time. But this one kept going. Then the floor started rolling like waves on the ocean and the sound was deafening. We got the students under the tables and once the worst shaking stopped we got them out on the football field. The aftershocks rippled the field. The light poles that line the field were swaying and we were afraid they would fall so we moved the students to the center.

For days and weeks the shaking continued – one large quake after another. We were all frazzled and on edge. There was no gas and very little food – even in Tokyo.

It taught us all a lesson about being prepared for emergencies. We’ve had 1300 quakes over 5.0 on the Richter scale since then – although they are further apart now. For a couple of weeks it was every few hours. Now we get a few each week.

By the time we got home that first night we heard that the tsunami had washed away 18,000 people and 125,000 buildings. Now five months later we all live in the shadow of Fukushima. Several hundred thousand people still live in shelters. The destruction will take years to clean up and so many people have lost their jobs. Farmers can’t sell radiated crops, whole factories were washed away, the fisherman cannot fish in waters filled with toxins and radiation.

Still, the Japanese have hope.

A sign in a shop window, just after the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.