3/11 Remembered. First time to see this live feed (as it happens) from NHK News. Watching this video made me feel panicked all over again as I remembered what happened 3 years ago. ★ :40 into the video, the earthquake alert chimes. That off-tone sound scares the hell out of me when I hear it now. ★ 1:20 -- the hall starts moving ★ 1:50 -- people are looking up as the ceiling lights sway ★ 2:06 -- NHK pulls away to the news desk. The anchor is not ready and the studio is moving. The studio is moving! The studio is moving! ★ 2:26 -- LIVE shot of Sendai, the largest city in Tohoku. Its shaking violently. ★ 2:40 -- News anchor is repeating several times Its a big earthquake! The Tokyo Shibuya studio is moving! ★ 3:00 -- There is panic at NHK studio. People are shouting. We can hear the building shaking violently. Please be careful of things falling on your head. ★ 3:20 -- NHK reports that it is a SHINDO 7 (nana) earthquake, the strongest on the Japanese scale. ★ 4:00 -- the whole west side of Japan is put on Tsunami warning. ★ 14:30 -- recorded video of the Sendai NHK office. People are frozen. The video continues until the tsunami which Id rather not talk about. Its been 3 years after the 9.1M earthquake changed our lives in Japan. Its amazing that those feeling of panic havent gone away. When you live through something so traumatic, it really never goes away. It resides deep in you. This video brought out those fears. I remember every second after that quake when it hit like it was a few hours ago. A massive earthquake -- theres nothing you can do. You freeze. Panic. Hold on to something and just freeze. Theres no where to run -- everything is shaking, swaying, falling. You feel like THIS IS IT after 2-3 seconds. Its easy to know this is the big one, it could all be over. All you can say is holy shit over and over and over again. I remember looking out the window and seeing buildings swaying as through we were on the sea during a storm. It was sunny. I dont remember if I was shouting anything after the first few seconds. Japan has phone and power lines above ground and they oscillate and make a lot of noise. There really is a rumble. During the first after shock a few minutes later, I ran down the stairs to a nearby park. The after shock was strong. I couldnt stand up on the street. I fell to the ground as if I was standing on a moving bus weaving left and right through traffic. There was horror on the faces of all the people around us. Panic turns to fear and utter helplessness. My home was a disaster. Glasses, books, shelves ... all on the ground and in pieces. We still had power and water though. Telephones seemed to work. My coffee toppled off my desk. The stain is still on the floor 3 years later. Watching NHK live, we saw those tsunami waves start pouring in. Seeing the cars on the road as doom flowed forward from a live helicopter feed ... We truly are powerless to the forces of nature. I yelled at the cars on the TV. TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND! ITS REAL!! Another after shock hits. I grab the flat screen so it doesnt topple over again. I tried calling friends living in Fukushima. I had lived in Iwaki in 2000 and knew people. Nothing. I tried calling friends who lived north of Tokyo. Calls had trouble getting through. Things happened. Fires. Fukushima Dai-ichi powerplant breaches and explodes. More aftershocks, every 5 minutes. Constant reports. Radiation fears. Reports of radioactive clouds roaming to Tokyo. There was a disruption in the supply chain and supermarkets ran out of bottled water and food. Some supermarkets closed. Fresh produce was questioned. Where were these tomatoes grown? The grass for the milk cows? The feed for the chickens? Fukushima? Then the fish. Is sushi safe? Idiots in California start taking iodine pills. Small laugh from Japan where the situation is beyond awful. Radiation air checks around Tokyo. Water plant radiation checks and readings. Spikes and low points. I felt so seasick after 3 days that I went down to Osaka for a few days. Many foreigners fled. They were labeled fly-jin because they flew away. They went home. Embassies gave free flights to citizens. I stayed here. This is my home. 3 years later, its still my home. There are still problems. People in Tohoku are still living in temp houses. Seeing the events unfold like this still frighten me like the day it happened. youtube/watch?v=JYfzLIPQc9w
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 17:29:20 +0000
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