Friday was fairly average. I was planning to visit my sister in Nagoya after school, so I had packed a backpack the night before. After making sure everything was in order for me to be able to leave immediately after school, I left for school. It was a pretty light day on Friday, as all my days were one class short since the third years had graduated on Wednesday. On Fridays, sixth period is homeroom and sometimes they have cleaning at the beginning of sixth period rather than at the usual time after sixth period. The students had finished cleaning and had been with their teachers for about ten minutes. I was in the teachers room with three other teachers, the principal, and the school secretary. We were all just standing around doing various things around the room.
Around 2:45, we heard a low rumbling. We all stopped what we were doing, and looked at each other and one teacher said 地震 (jishin - earthquake). This is what seems to happen every time we have had an earthquake. Everyone pauses. If it is a strong one that shakes the room and lasts a few seconds someone will say 大きい (ookii - big). If it lasts longer than five seconds usually someone will add 長い (nagai - long). This time, after about ten seconds of increasing intensity, someone said すごく大きい (sugoku ookii - super big). It was about this time that everyone realized that this was not like the little tremors that were frequent in Ibaraki. I lost count of those in the first month of living there. It was getting increasingly violent and showed no signs of stopping. After we stared at each other for a few seconds, things in the room that had just been rattling actually started to move. In a second we were all under our desks, except the second year social studies teacher who had been standing by the TV. He stood there through the whole thing, holding it in place.
I really don't have a concept of how long it lasted. The whole experience was pretty unreal. It kind of felt like you're stading on a train between two cars going around corners at high speed, except way more disconcerting because when you're on a train you expect that level of motion. When you're squatting beneath your desk in a solidly constructed building you're note expecting to be thrown against every side of the small enclosure with the sounds of pictures and books crashing to the floor while two teachers on opposite ends of the room repeatedly say 怖い (kowai - scary).
Just northeast of Tokyo Bay there is a smallish lake. Mito is justnorth of that lake, right in that nice yellowish orange section.
After the room stopped shaking, we got out from under our desks. We looked around at the room which was now quite a mess. The nearest teacher to me asked 初めて？ (hajimete - first time). I responded in the affirmative as the rumbling picked up again. She said もう一度 (moo icido - one more) and we got back under our desks for the first aftershock.
I was pretty surprised that the building had survived that much shaking. It doesn't seem like any structure would be able to shake that much and still stand. After the first aftershock, we got out and the teachers were about to give the word for everyone to make their way outside to the yard but then the second aftershock started up and we were back under our desks. Once that had subsided, we all left the building at a jog and gathered in the schoolyard. The kids all got in their rows by classes and squatted down to be counted to make sure that everyone was there. And once all were present and accounted for, the teachers were called together and the principal announced that the earthquake had been off the coast of Tohoku and a large tsunami had occurred. This was a great relief to me as it meant that both my sister, Lana, and everyone else I knew in Japan was farther away from the epicenter than I was, and I was now standing safely in an open field.
We felt some powerful aftershocks every few minutes. The only one that approached the violence of the ones we had inside almost brought the gym down. There was a full second or two where the wall facing us shook independently of the roof. I was sure it would crumble, but the tremor dissipated and the wall stopped moving. Until about 24 hours later, it seemed like the earth never stopped shaking, and well into Sunday there was still an aftershock every few minutes.
After we waited for a while out in the cold, the staff decided it was time to let the kids go home. About half the children had their keys with them, so they were dismissed immediately. The rest were allowed in a few classes at a time with their homreoom teachers and got only their keys before coming out and being dismissed.
After all the kids were home, the teachers met back up at the school briefly before we dispersed. I went home and found my apartment standing, though continually and loudly shaking. It looked like someone had been searching for the secret microfilm I had hidden somewhere. My food was all over the entrance way, my refrigerator had moved half a foot, my papers were all over the floor and my closet door had fallen on the suitcases I had been packing just to get an idea of how everything would fit when I was going to move out on the 25th. Miraculously, nothing was broken. It was just extremely messy and I had no power or running water.
I checked around a bit, changed out of my suit and put some essentials like my passport and the only food I had in the house, half a loaf of bread, in my bag that I had packed for Nagoya. I went out and headed for a walk to see how the town had held up and because I didn't really trust the sounds my apartment was making. I soon discovered that power was out everywhere. As it started to get dark, it dawned on me that I had no food, no water, and that I probably wasn't the only on in Mito in that situation. I headed for the nearest convenience store which was already packed, running low on everything, and also powerless.
The line stretched all the way around the store. I stood in that line for about an hour and a half, amazed at how patient and orderly everyone was being. We all stood in line in the dark everyone who had better flashlights helping their neighbours who just had cell phones. There were three clerks working, two at each register with a calculator and one bagging things and running to find how much things cost when the clerks didn't know how much it was supposed to be. They were out of normal water, naturally, so I bought a couple bottles of carbonated mineral water, the last calorie mate, and a couple of bags of peanuts. Everything else there either required power, hot water, or was already sold out.
I returned home and cleared a spot under my desk, cleared a path to my back doorway, and slept like this in case of a strong aftershock so nothing would knock me unconscious before I could make it to the door. Then I went to bed and tried to get some sleep. My apartment continued to shake all night. There were tremors powerful enough to wake me and make me sit upright in a ball under my desk at least a dozen times, but considering the day I had, I actually slept pretty well.
I was pretty surprised that the building had survived that much shaking. It doesn't seem like any structure would be able to shake that much and still stand. After the first aftershock, we got out and the teachers were about to give the word for everyone to make their way outside to the yard but then the second aftershock started up and we were back under our desks. Once that had subsided, we all left the building at a jog and gathered in the schoolyard. The kids all got in their rows by classes and squatted down to be counted to make sure that everyone was there. And once all were present and accounted for, the teachers were called together and the principal announced that the earthquake had been off the coast of Tohoku and a large tsunami had occurred. This was a great relief to me as it meant that both my sister, Lana, and everyone else I knew in Japan was farther away from the epicenter than I was, and I was now standing safely in an open field.
We felt some powerful aftershocks every few minutes. The only one that approached the violence of the ones we had inside almost brought the gym down. There was a full second or two where the wall facing us shook independently of the roof. I was sure it would crumble, but the tremor dissipated and the wall stopped moving. Until about 24 hours later, it seemed like the earth never stopped shaking, and well into Sunday there was still an aftershock every few minutes.
After we waited for a while out in the cold, the staff decided it was time to let the kids go home. About half the children had their keys with them, so they were dismissed immediately. The rest were allowed in a few classes at a time with their homreoom teachers and got only their keys before coming out and being dismissed.
After all the kids were home, the teachers met back up at the school briefly before we dispersed. I went home and found my apartment standing, though continually and loudly shaking. It looked like someone had been searching for the secret microfilm I had hidden somewhere. My food was all over the entrance way, my refrigerator had moved half a foot, my papers were all over the floor and my closet door had fallen on the suitcases I had been packing just to get an idea of how everything would fit when I was going to move out on the 25th. Miraculously, nothing was broken. It was just extremely messy and I had no power or running water.
I checked around a bit, changed out of my suit and put some essentials like my passport and the only food I had in the house, half a loaf of bread, in my bag that I had packed for Nagoya. I went out and headed for a walk to see how the town had held up and because I didn't really trust the sounds my apartment was making. I soon discovered that power was out everywhere. As it started to get dark, it dawned on me that I had no food, no water, and that I probably wasn't the only on in Mito in that situation. I headed for the nearest convenience store which was already packed, running low on everything, and also powerless.
The line stretched all the way around the store. I stood in that line for about an hour and a half, amazed at how patient and orderly everyone was being. We all stood in line in the dark everyone who had better flashlights helping their neighbours who just had cell phones. There were three clerks working, two at each register with a calculator and one bagging things and running to find how much things cost when the clerks didn't know how much it was supposed to be. They were out of normal water, naturally, so I bought a couple bottles of carbonated mineral water, the last calorie mate, and a couple of bags of peanuts. Everything else there either required power, hot water, or was already sold out.
I returned home and cleared a spot under my desk, cleared a path to my back doorway, and slept like this in case of a strong aftershock so nothing would knock me unconscious before I could make it to the door. Then I went to bed and tried to get some sleep. My apartment continued to shake all night. There were tremors powerful enough to wake me and make me sit upright in a ball under my desk at least a dozen times, but considering the day I had, I actually slept pretty well.
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