Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant explosion

It all started the on the 11th of March. We got up really early and walked together to the metro, which we never do; I like to walk to uni, which is north from where we live and since Jonas works in a suite it tends to get way to hot, so he's always taking the underground. That Friday, it felt like we had to be together a bit extra, since we were expecting a visit from a good friend from Sweden in our tiny apartment and of course not a lot of one-on-one time would be possible.

I went to my boss straight away when I came to work, since he's normally the only one in early in the morning. I had received declaration papers which needed to be ready and signed by the 15th, so it was important to get it done asap, since papers + Japan always = a whole lot of hazzle and time. I was advised to go back down to my ward office where we live and sort it out directly, so I was contemplating taking my computer and work from home during the day. Due to prior plans I decided it'd be more practical to go back to uni and finally pick up our visitor from Ueno at the end of the day. That was frankly bloody lucky.

All went perfectly fine and I just said goodbye to my lunch date Margareta and made it around the corner, when the ground started shaking/rocking back and forth as if you are on a ferry when it's a storm. I was just underneath a set of electricity wires and the poles were moving almost 40cm from side to side. The cars looked like they were in an RnB video, where one lets pressurized air in and out, while this was swaying them from side to side. All of a sudden I was swiftly dragged into a small parking lot by an old couple, who of course had seen me standing there completely frozen under the wires and decided they'd better save the stupid foreigner, who didn't understand it wasn’t entirely brilliant to stand there. The lady quickly dragged me down on my knees and showed me I had to put my handbag on my head and hold on to her and her husband, who in their turn hold on to their neighbor. Alarms, which sounded like the flight alarms you'd hear in a movie, started to go off and many of us, still on our hands and knees lost balance. At that point I remembered that Jonas had read to me that if the quake was quite big, then it'd be hard to keep the balance if you were standing straight up and I became really scared. At the same time, I was thinking: 'OK, So I'm supposed to sit here on a parking lot, with a bunch of old people, in a country where it's impossible to understand what they are saying, with a handbag on my head, which by the way is my favorite handbag which I got from mum and haven't even had the time to tell her that + without Jonas, who's now on the 44th floor in Mori, which is probably swaying several meters in each direction, and he'll probably fall and hit his toe again; that's just brilliant'. Things started to fall from the balconies around us and I tried to get my phone out to call Jonas and tell him about this really absurd situation, when it hit me full frontal what was happening and I just became completely cold from the inside. Up until then it’d been as when you are diving or snorkeling the first time: you see the underwater world like it’s on TV or through very strange glasses. I remember starting to shake so much I couldn’t get any of the numbers right on my display and I felt like I couldn’t breathe at the same time as I was repeating to myself ‘Mori tower is one of the best built skyscrapers in the world, it’s designed to take a 9 on the Richter scale, there are stairs he can climb down if the elevators aren’t running, I have seen they have fire extinguishers everywhere, Japanese people are calm and methodical and have protocols for everything..’

It felt like an eternity sitting there, even if it was just a couple of minutes. When the ground finally was calmer, all kinds of sirens started going off and people were calling out loudly for eachother. I again tried my phone, but the phone net was completely dead and I started running towards my building on campus. Outside was out research group who had a list they were checking people off at who turned up. At first, no one was allowed inside since care was taken to the gas bottles in the lab; we were asked to terminate all experiments before the after chock. I think by then I was hit by a small panic attack and decided to go into my office and get my handbag with all my cards including alien registration card, driver license and my keys. I met people who had been stuck under their desks during the initial shake and they were running for the exits. I dived into my office, took my handbag, a pair of sneakers I had under my desk, before one of the language teachers came in after me and said 'Now, Colin-san, you out with me'.

The after chock, which came about 10 minutes later, was so strong that all the windows on the buildings around us were shaking and cracks started forming in the walls. Many people became afraid and started crying, but most of us were still silent and desperately tried calling for our families and friends. The phones were still dead. We were then asked to go home, since the university area was being evacuated; not once did any of this information come out in English, which I found very worrying and stressful.

Just when I started walking, my phone rang and it was Jonas who managed to get through via Viber, since the 3G net had just started working on and off. By that point I was so scared I couldn’t even cry; the line was bad and was soon gone, but we managed to get ‘am OK, walking home now, meet you there, yes, going now’ through. Then the strangest walk through the streets of Tokyo started, I have ever seen. Yes, it’s always a lot of people out in the city, but imagine all those people normally on the trains, metro, JR etc underground, EVERYONE had to walk home. Some people tried to get into the few taxis which were still available, but after I had been walking for about 10 minutes, the traffic had stopped moving completely. Everyone was calm, but it was disturbingly quiet. People were still trying to call their near and dear ones, but it was still impossible to get through.
It was when I passed a big screen in Akihabara, when it all became seriously scary. The pictures showed a approximately 10 m wave sweeping in over land, taking everything with it and the destruction was total. The news were of course in Japanese, but the map that followed was very clear on its message that it had gone out a national tsunami warning over all of the east, south and parts of the west coasts. Our apartment is just down by Tokyo Bay and the wave which had been cabled out in that TV program had reached more than a kilometer inland. I became extremely worried, since I know that against a tsunami there is no chance; I however decided to follow the stream of people south through the city, since a probable wave would likely pass over Chiba before reaching us and there would be some sort of warning. I hoped at least. Besides, it was my only chance to find Jonas at that point, since it was now completely impossible to reach each other.
When I finally reached our street I ran into Jonas and we hugged for a long time; around our house people had gathered in front of yet another big screen at our entrance and some were crying. The death tolls from Sendai and its vicinity had started coming up.

The elevator in our house was not working, so we had to take the fire escape to the 10th floor; until that point, none of us had given our apartment one thought. When we got in, we just stared for several minutes. Finally Jonas sighed: ‘But Jesus Christ, it looks like a group of crack heads have been partying here for two weeks’. We looked at each other and nervously started giggling and then we laughed until we were both in tears. We finally mumbled ‘it’s only things, we’re OK’ and started cleaning up. Our new, really nice iMac, which we had been saving a long time for, was on the floor, upside down in a pool of water, which came from the water boiler, which of course had smashed when it hit the floor; the bench oven was completely crushed, next to the rise cooker, which we had bought the day before, where it looked like someone had punched big holes in it. There were several marks in the wooden floor where furniture had fallen down. Everything which had been standing on the counters in the kitchen, a pot with stirrers and spatulas, oatmeal and O’Boy etc in nice cans and jars, glasses and so forth, were scattered across the floor. The lamps we had were on the floor, of course completely broken and half the larder was in the sink. Together with our dresser which had fallen over and tipped out all its content, our nice palm tree, my jewelry box and scarves, the clothes in our wardrobes in a soup of softner, washing powder, soil and spaghetti, it was the biggest mess I have seen. The only thing which was closed was the refrigerator and the cupboard with our china. However, both the refrigerator and also the bed had moved several decimeters from the walls.

We just couldn’t believe it, but started trying to get the computer working along with our network, so we could contact our families in Sweden. We found a bottle of Laphroaigh, which had been in its container and was whole (!), two glasses and took a proper whiskey before continuing. All of a sudden the whole apartment started swaying from side to side and our doors started banging into each other, which after that frequently happened every fifth minute. We cleaned up as much as possible and decided to go over to our friends’ house; they were just as freaked out as we were and none of us wanted to be alone throughout the night. In all this mess, we had of course not been able to track down our friend from Sweden but we just had to hope she was most probably stuck at the airport or on a train which had been stopped. The whole country was struck by electricity and gas cuts on and off, which meant there were no hot water and no public transport. My phone finally rang and it was my friend telling me they had not been able to land in Tokyo, but been directed to a military base near to Osaka. She would however probably be able to take a train to Tokyo the following day and stay inside for the night, which made us both very happy. We had then just seen on the news that one of the express trains leaving Narita had gone off its tracks into a field and two others were still not accounted for.

The night was very restless and just when we managed to go to sleep, the house’s earth quake alarm went off; our friends decided it was better to sleep in the lobby, so we ran down the stairs 12 floors and stayed there until the early morning together with other concerned people from the building. We then walked through a spookily empty city towards Tokyo main station and met up with a pretty tired, but otherwise alright Hallgerd. We walked to our house, had a talk with our neighbors about the latest news from the Japanese press and started yet another updating session online.

Since it was now ’only’ shaking every 30 minutes on average and they had lifted the tsunami warning in Tokyo + we were going nuts just sitting around waiting, we decided to take a walk through the city. It was nice, but only after a few hours vi had a phone call from Jonas, saying we had to come home immediately since there had been an explosion in a nuclear plant in the north. We ran up from the metro over to our house, up the fire escape to the 10th again and quite worried listened to the news. They told us it was a hydrogen explosion and we became a bit calmer, but wanted to be extra safe and decided to stay indoors. After a while we started receiving alarming news about the water and food were running scarce in Tokyo; we decided to at least go down to our little store on the corner to buy whatever they had, since we didn’t know if or when another explosion would occur and we’d had to get inside. When we came down, the shelves were half empty and I have never picked up such random foods in my life nor had such a strange welcome dinner in our house. We were supposed to go to our friend’s really fantastic restaurant, but this had of course been cancelled. During the night we felt several big shakes which wake us up and turned out to be 6:s on the Richter scale.

The following morning there were no further news about tsunamis or explosions. We decided to go for an outing in Harajuku/Yoyogi park/Meji/Shinjuku/Shibuya, since the metro had started running in that direction. It was hardly a soul in the tunnels and almost completely quiet; it was seriously freaky. When we arrived, there were very many westerners out, but still very empty compared how it usually is. In some parts it was like a strange ghost town. Everyone who knew Japanese were probably at home watching the news.

Just when we stepped off at our station on our way back, there was yet another alarm about an explosion at the Fujishima plant. Everyone were asked to go inside and wait for further instructions; we relaxed a bit when it was reported to be yet another hydrogen explosion, but we then started discussion what we should do, since the situation started to become extremely creepy. Having reactors blowing up for whatever reason did not seem reassuring and the epicentra of several of the shakes were now moving south towards us. So far the wind was blowing towards to the north, but what would happen if a there was a nuclear explosion and the wind turned? When would we find out in English? What if there was a release in the ground water? There were several warnings about heavy after chocks which were just as likely to hit Tokyo full frontal and even though no one can know, if they would occur, what would happen? Would we also be hit by a tsunami? And if yes, where? We became really worried when news from our French friends came, regarding their embassy telling the French citizens of Tokyo to leave the country immediately. At that point we started checking flight. However, we still had not been given any warnings from the Swedish embassy, so we decided to wait another day before making a decision. We called friends in Tokyo and by that point everyone we knew who had children, had already or were in the process of leaving. Jonas still decided to go to work on the Monday, while I decided it best to stay with my friend, since people were not advised at that point to enter the university area.

Hallgerd and I decided to go on a small outing close to home and took the monorail to Odaiba; we did not however dare to get off it if there’d be an alarm. We then went to Jonas’ job in Roppongi and walked home together, so that we’d all be at the same place if something happened. Again the night was filled with worry since there were several strong shakes and when we woke up we all felt almost sea sick, due to the house swaying back and forth.

When reports started coming in about a fire in the third reactor in combination with ambiguous news about a nuclear waste outburst, we packed our bags. We got in touch with our families and jobs and told them that we were leaving as soon as possible. The ticket prices were rising fast and within a few hours it was almost ten times the money to go from Japan to Europe. Hallgerd already has a return ticket to go back to the US, so we prioritized getting her to the airport asap; when we got to Ueno, no trains were leaving for Narita, so we rushed down to Ningyocho to the shuttle port and managed to get her on a bus. I then ran back, since I received a phone call from Jonas saying we had tickets for Singapore via Vietnam and had about 20 minutes to pack. Since several planes had been redirected to Osaka and they still seemed to hold their normal air schedule, we still did not know if we could leave from Narita. To stay overnight in any location without electricity would most likely be cold, at the same time as we knew that if we got away and could land in Ho Chi Minh as planned it’d be around 30 degrees and 80% humidity. On top of that, we were not sure when, or actually if, we could return, so all of both affectionate and money value needed to go with us. It was hence a suite case containing my grandmother’s medallion, a knitted hat, flipflops, my watch I got from my family when I got my title, my favorite white handbag I got from my mom, two woolen sweaters, a sarong, my computer.. I have never had such a crazy content in a luggage ever.

We however managed to get to a shuttle bus passing a long, but manageable line; when I had said goodbye to my friend, there had been three really big sumo wrestlers waiting there as well, so from now on we decided to call it ‘the sumo terminal’. Traffic was very calm on the highway and we could in good time sort out exit/entrance papers for me at the airport; on top of that I asked the flight company if we could possibly get on an earlier flight which was OK. We had to wait for 16 h in Vietnam, but it was worth it. We could also sort out some cash, which we had been a bit worried about, since we had read news about the Japanese stock market and the value of the YEN being unstable, which turned out fine though.

As if the computer and chemistry gods had understood that neither of us were especially tough landing in Singapore, we got the most amazing taxi driver who got us from door to door within half an hour at a price of about 14 EURO, including a smashing guiding as we were passing by all the important spots. The hotel manager welcomed us himself with fantastic and service minded manners and also upgraded our room. He looked very understanding when we said we came from Tokyo and almost straight away sent up room service. Then we slept for a very long time.
Now we have been here for about a week; it’s supposed to be a ‘vacation’, but it so far has been very strange and stressful, not knowing when or if we can come back. In one way we are grateful we had the opportunity to leave, while at the same time we have our lives in Tokyo. We are scheduled to go back on the 28th and are currently following the news several times every day.

We want to thank everyone who has written us or called; better families, friends or colleagues than you guys are hard to find and we have been so happy to receive word from all of you! We are now going to start the watching-all-the-news-channels-and-reading-all-the-latest-articles-regarding-if-we-are-safe-in-Japan-or-not for tonight. We will post further updates on Facebook and are also available via email or Skype; thank you all again for thinking of us, it has really warmed both our hearts!

Karinh