A firsthand account of the earthquake in Japan by a New Zealander living in Tokyo
By Cameron McKean
We are in the kitchen when the shaking starts. After a few seconds we are unable to stand, and crawl under the table. The shaking grows in magnitude until it feels as though the house is made from latex; warping and stretching side-to-side. I clutch a leg of the table and put my head to the ground (the recommended approach). Hannah, my partner, sits upright watching the shaking; she begins to panic and hyperventilate. I tell her to look at the wall, but she wants to see the shaking.
After a few years in Tokyo you accumulate a random collection of useful facts about earthquake survival. Amidst the shaking I remember having the clear thought that unblocked exits are essential for escaping a collapsing building. I crawl to the front door, kick it open and get back under the table.
The sound increases to a roar, an immense shuddering. Mirrors smash and our rice cooker, toaster and other objects of daily life are flung across the room.
As the seismic waves ease we come out from under the table and pack our essentials very fast: computer, passport, underpants, t-shirts, water bottles, knife, torch, whistle and books (I remember: post-quake boredom is something the survivors of the 1995 Kobe earthquake wrote about).
Running outside, over pieces of concrete which have fallen off the apartment, we see our neighbour wearing pyjamas standing in the middle of a main street. He approaches us "I saw an apartment bend like this...," he says blankly, hands flapping in an unnatural way.
While talking, the second shake hits, and we run onto the main road past a woman on a bicycle who only notices the shaking as we pass her. Her serene face transforms into something anguished. We stand in the road and watch traffic lights, buildings and trees wobble.
How serious is it — is this the forecasted (and overdue) big Tokyo earthquake? We check the Japan Meteorological Agency’s website to asses the severity. On a map of Japan we can see that the whole country has been hit, covered in coloured dots, but we see something very rare and horrible; a purple dot, meaning a quake of Shindo 7 or above, the highest possible magnitude in Japan’s earthquake scale. "Sendai is gone," someone says.
Out on the main street people are milling - an unusual thing in Tokyo. Everyone is on their cellphones, but no one’s answering; clogged networks. Children walk by wearing soft earthquake helmets and business men rush by in hardhats. An old man asks us in English if we were surprised; we say "hai," and he walks off laughing. Plumes of black smoke fill up the sky from a big fire on one of the islands in Tokyo Bay; confusion sets in about how serious the situation in Tokyo is.
The aftershocks continue (has the ground stopped moving at all?). We go up to the supermarket to buy food. Supermarket closed. In a few hours the shelves of convenience stores across the city will be bare. More helicopters now, and more people milling. This is around the time that messages from family and friends finally reach us: "Are you alive?," "Get out of Tokyo NOW," "If you’re not dead please call me". None of this helps the situation. We go to a small park. I go for supplies.
By now the airport, the subway and the taxi's have stopped running. The roads of our neighbourhood are packed in scenes reminiscent of clichéd disaster movies; endless traffic jams bordered by rivers of people with maps in hand, carrying bags of convenience store food, wearing hard hats or silver earthquake emergency backpack kits.
Thousands of people emerge out of the closed metro system to begin their walk home. It is unnerving to see this hidden population of Tokyo — the commuters — suddenly manifesting on the street. For many Tokyo workers, who live hours away by train, walking home is impossible. Many friends remain stranded in their offices. Two friends walk over 20km to reach their homes.
Back through the melee I come to the park. The temperature is now below five degree's and we weigh up the value of returning home (and being warm) or remaining the park (and not having to worry about our apartment collapsing).
It gets too cold and we go home. For the first time in years none of us take off our shoes inside the house. Neither do visiting Japanese friends; pragmatism overruling centuries of culture. Shoes are important after a quake.
Sitting at the kitchen table we watch footage of the devastating tsunami and time the aftershocks we are feeling; they came in waves every 10 minutes or so. Some are loud, shaking the house; others are almost imperceptible.
We have experienced over 50 small quakes by now, and it’s hard to tell the difference between the shaking and the stillness. We have begun sensing phantom aftershocks. Someone yell’s "another one's coming," but nothing’s moving; it’s an illusion. It feels like the ground is made of liquid; like stepping off a rough boat ride onto land and carrying the sea with you in your legs. To identify when the earth really is moving we have filled a large glass bottle with water.
It's now 4:24 am and although the aftershocks have subsided significantly they are still present. Since writing, I have checked the bottle about 10-15 times. The water was moving about half of those times.
Right now, Hannah and I have two emergency backpacks by the bed, we are sleeping in our clothes. I feel paranoid. It's very difficult to sleep, every shake wakes me. A tin whistle in one pocket, a small knife in the other, and the bedside window opened slightly makes me feel a little in control of my fate. I can feel another aftershock right now, the doors are rattling (no need to check the water).
Out of everything which has happened over the past 14 hours, it was the tearing sound of our apartments concrete foundations beginning to give way which was most disturbing; the coarse crumbling of a big rock threatening to break into two.
Our neighbour also was disturbed by the sounds. He described the sound of the earthquake as "one million chainsaws idling".
I hope Tokyo, and the rest of Japan, never have to hear those sounds again.
3 News