Saturday, March 12, 2011

Japan's Strongest Earthquake in 100 Years...




































Yesterday was crazy... Everything around here stopped due to the earthquake and you could see some people walking around with these kind of hats in order to protect themselves from falling objects, fires and other dangers.

You can buy the hat at Rakuten. A child wearing this hat came up to me and some friends from nowhere and said "Konbanwa!" = "Good evening!" His family had put these hats on all their children. Seeing that made it feel like it was also a space invasion going on...














Penny that used to live in the same "Guest House" as me took this picture of children outside
a school wearing these kind of hats. More pictures at her blog here.

My friend Jakob took this picture of me standing next to one of many cracks that appeared in
the walls of our school.

I was eating Ramen with some friends at a small restaurant while talking with a 70 year old drunk Japanese man when the eartquake struck. It started shaking a little bit and then the Japanese man jumped down under his table and started screaming "Get down!!"

We just laughed at him because small earthquakes happens once in a while here. But this one didn't stop for several minutes and just got stronger and stronger. I thought the lamps inside would fall down on us so I ran outside.

All the cars had stopped and the streets were flooding with people. Some of them were crying and the buildings was shaking so much that for a moment I thought that Tokyo was about to fall apart...

But then it calmed down before another one with similar power struck. The Japanese man was a bit angry at me when I came back inside and said:
-"You should never leave your group!"


Even when the eartquake was over we still didn't really understand what a catastrophe this had been in some places of Japan. When we came to school they told everybody to evacuate to this local.

Some people had just come to Tokyo some hours ago and must have thought that this is part of daily life in Japan, so people started joking with them saying things like:
-"If you thought this one was big you should have seen the one yesterday".

You have all probably been seeing these crazy pictures of places in ruins with cars floating around. Those pictures are mostly from north Japan where the Tsunami hit, which seems to have done more damage than the actual Earthquake.





















The damage in Tokyo was nothing like this, but it still felt crazy to experience it. I'm so regretful that
I didn't have my camera this day, but since more than 1200 people is dead or missing in Japan now
I should just be happy that me and everyone I know is okey.





























You couldn't call anyone and all the trains stopped so the lines to pay phones, buses and bicycle stores were extreme... A good thing in this situation is that the Japanese people are so organized and don't panic too much which could have made it more dangerous.

While writing this I can actually feel my room shaking a bit. It's been small earthquakes throughout
this day too, but I think the danger is over for now?

23 comments:

  1. Jag är glad att höra att du mår bra :( var försiktig, det sägs att det kan komma en jättestor jordbävning. *kramar* jag tänker på er där borta, har följt nyheterna sedan igår...

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  2. oh god.. i hope that you're fine in there D: ♥

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  3. It's so terrible!
    WE PRAY FOR JAPAN!
    T__T

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  4. sounds so damn scary! ;_; good to hear you and your friends are okay!

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  5. Vad bra att du och dina vänner är okej.
    Kan bara föreställa mig hur läskigt det måste vara.

    Hoppas allt blir bättre där borta och att efterskalven slutar snart!

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  6. It's good to hear that you are alright. It must have been scary!

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  7. I heard the aftershocks have been forecasted to keep coming for another month or so... So they'll still be going on when I move there, fun times. ;)

    Skönt att höra att allt är okej under omständigheterna. Jag fattade inte heller hur illa det var först - folk ringde och messade mig som tokar så fort de hade sett/hört om jordbävningen... jag var ute o handlade och undrade varför de störde mig, haha! :P

    Ta't lugnt o ta hand om dig!1

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  8. Läskigt! Glad att höra att du är ok! Det var ju tydligen ändå en del som skadades/dog i Tokyo... Ganbatte!

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  9. Good to hear that you and your friends are all safe! It was all over the news yesterday. Horrible pictures from Sendai..

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  10. When I heard about this crisis, I thought about all you bloggers and other ppl in Japan. Glad that you are ok.. (:

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  11. good to know your ok, my prayers go out to japan and all the families that were affected。

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  12. Oh I'm glad you're all safe! My goodness the instant I saw this was happening on the news, I was shocked >___<;;

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  13. good to know you're ok! yeah, it was so crazy... not too bad here either but we're kinda stranded what with no buses or trains and all... :(

    i can't imagine what it must be like for the people in Miyagi...

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  14. Thanks for the post. I think a lot of people panicked because not a lot of people know how far Sendai is away from Tokyo.

    Some may have thought their friends may have been in tsunami zone as well.

    I hope you stay safe. I have a feeling the danger is not yet over so please be cautious at all times ~<3

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  15. I'm so glad to hear you okay! I hope everything's will work out and that no further damage will happen.
    Stay safe! <3

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  16. I'm glad you're OK! It must have been terrible..:(

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  17. I didin't know it was this bad when my parents told me about the eathquake, but when I saw the news I was sooo shocked ;___; Poor people. I heard from my japanese friend Suzuka that the dead people's amount has increased into 1600. And still the news tells us here in Finland that there's only been about 500 certificated dead. But it's horrible to think that it can happen to anybody. Take care of yourself out there !

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  18. I'm glad to see you are okay :)
    it looks pretty bad...

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  19. omg that's so scary! i'm glad you are okay as well as your friends who were with you. i couldn't imagine going through something like that. Most American buildings would be demolished....

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  20. Thank you all sooo much for your support and comments!! It's so nice of you to care!

    Thank you from the bottom om my heart!

    I just saw on the news that 10 000 people are missing in a demolished city in Japan... That's really scary...

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  21. It's good to know that you are okay! :>

    Japan doesn't deserve this..
    Makes me feel so bad :<

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