The following text was originally intended as a contributed essay to a major European newspaper. Unfortunately I failed the deadline by 24 hours and it did not materialize. Even if I made it, I suspect that the editors would not like it because of its unspectacular, off the standard context of “human interest” story. Nowhere else to go, the text ended up here. After all, this is my blog, so it is where it should be.
I was preparing my late lunch at home and had just put a bento pack into the microwave when the first strike hit the whole nation. After a few seconds, I realized that the earthquake was really big. All the things in the kitchen rattled and the rack beside the fridge began dancing frantically. So I decided to hold it by both hands, like a Disney character trying to stop a big lorry running over you. I knew it was meaningless and thought the rack would fall down entirely eventually. But you know, there was nothing else to do.
30 seconds passed. Or was it an entire minute? I lost sense of time. I was still holding the rack (it did not fall down after all). The whole house was still shaking. Now in a big and slow swing. From my past experiences, that is a sign that the earthquake is a really big one with an epicenter rather far from my place. Similar to the one in Kobe in 1995, but this one was MUCH bigger.
The sway decayed. Confirming everything in the kitchen is alright, I ran to the TV set and turned it on. I knew somewhere in the country had been hit severely, but where? The TV was already updating the status of the incident. The news crew of NHK was reporting that the big strike with Richter-scale 8.4 has just hit the Tohoku region. Hew, 8.4! It is really big. (afterwards, they changed it upward to 9.0)
I made a phone call to my wife, who was working at a nearby pharmacy store. After several retries, we got connected. Over the phone, she said she was alright, but her voice was trembling and she was clearly in a state of shock. She hates earthquake more than anything else. So she was in a panic. I said that it would be alright and told her to stay with her colleague at the pharmacy.
