A strange calm followed Friday’s earthquake
It is eerily quiet this evening. I hear no traffic, no wind, not even the birds. It’s hard to believe that Tokyo has been in a state of emergency for four days, following earthquake, tsunami and radioactive leaks.
I was at home alone on Friday at 2.45 p.m., in a quiet residential area of Tokyo. When the house started shaking I ran out onto the street. I could see only two other people. They disappeared before I had a chance to talk to them, so I too went back inside. Bottles had fallen off shelves, coffee was splattered across the hob, the contents of one bookshelf lay strewn across the floor.
I knew it wasn’t yet over from the ongoing tremors. So I started to pack an evacuation kit of laptop, passport, and a few treasured possessions. Then came another big shake. I went out onto my doorstep and this time saw my neighbour at her door. She was packing more sensible things such as bottled water, canned food, sleeping bags. She said she was scared. She told me she had never experienced anything like this. She said if it happened again, we should either get into a narrow place like the toilet, or go to an open space outdoors. But: ‘wakaranai’ (‘don’t know’).
For the next five hours I alternated between checking the internet, adding to my evacuation kit, and running to the doorstep when the tremors got bad. Mobile phone lines were mostly down but I managed one brief conversation with Kentaro, my husband. Meanwhile, the sound of the construction workers drilling away in between tremors was strangely reassuring.
At 9 p.m. I got a call from Kentaro saying he had walked for two hours and was nearly home. We arranged to meet at the local supermarket. This was the first time I had ventured out since the earthquake. The main road looked like a moving walkway, dense with people making their way home on foot. In the supermarket checkout queue there was no story-swapping, no tears, not even nervous laughter.
The next day was business as usual. Three of my neighbours had washed and hung their laundry by the time I got up. The public transport network was largely functioning, despite the ongoing tremors. Kentaro was one of the many who went to work. I stayed at home and watched in horror as the images of the tsunami and earthquake came through. I started emailing friends and family to see how they were. One said he had been in the city centre during the quake, and had seen the high-rise buildings ‘wobbling like tofu’. My mother-in-law had been home alone in one of the areas that had power-cuts. She spent the afternoon in the dark, doing exercises to keep warm. I went out to a coffee shop, and felt cheered by the sight of people going about their lives. Most of the other customers were alone, like me. I wondered if they too were looking for human contact.
Sunday felt like the first day of spring. We went to the park. The sun was shining, children were playing baseball, couples were walking hand-in-hand. And we saw the first of this year’s cherry blossom. There was a sense that here in Tokyo, the worst was over.
Since then, the mood has deteriorated. On Tuesday at 5 a.m. we were jolted out of sleep by another big tremor. The news from the Fukushima nuclear plant is grimmer and grimmer. Tokyo has been divided into groups, in preparation for rolling blackouts, but so far none have occurred. The rubbish was collected as usual this morning. Even my Japanese classes, run by volunteers, are taking place. But school graduation ceremonies, university exams, and non-urgent business meetings have been cancelled. There is food in the supermarkets, but stocks are low. I’ve heard of some foreigners who are leaving the country, but most of the Japanese people I’ve contacted have no plans to evacuate. They are used to earthquakes. And besides, ‘there is no safe place in Japan’.
Since moving here three months ago, I have been asking people what is happening in Japan. They speak of an ineffective government, a stagnating domestic market, declining interest in learning foreign languages, youth suicide and ‘hikikomori’ (young people withdrawing from society). The picture painted was of a nation at a loss, directionless. And that was before 11 March. We can only hope that out of this enormous tragedy some new rays of hope will emerge. Perhaps one such ray is the solidarity being expressed by the international community. One friend told me he almost cried when he saw a message in Japanese in a UK newspaper: ‘Don’t give up, Japan. Don’t give up, Tohoku’.