To Find Whether My Family is Safe

On 13 and 14 March, 2011 -.

What people want to know best is whether their family are safe when natural disasters occur.  Phone did not work next day neither, so many people were using Twitter, social networking services, google person finders to get information of their family.  Most of the time, I was checking information on Twitter and share them with my friends and people from my hometown.  I thought information is the most vital.  Even if they are small pieces of information, when many of them are accumulated, they will be useful to capture what happened in my hometown as a whole.

I registered my parents name on Google Person Finder, and sent an email to a local radio station so that they would read aloud the name of my parents.  They were reading aloud all messages from listeners for 24 hours.  I understood how a local radio was important because listeners may have a portable radio though they cannot watch tv, and they tell us very detailed information such as who are looking for whom, which roads are available, and which shelter does not have enough foods, etc...  Besides, the national broadcasting and large private tv stations could not work on these and were not very helpful to grasp the local condition.  I also wrote how my classmates in Lund were worrying about them.  I knew there was no electricity and my parents might not be listening to the radio, but I wanted to do try everything I could do.  So did many people, I guess.

One of the most important information were satellite and aerial photos of my hometown.  You can see which areas were devastated by the tsunami from the photos.  The coastal areas were mostly destroyed as you can see in the aerial photos.

Centre of Kamaishi

North of Kamaishi

Rikuzen Takata

I got to know the houses near by the coast in my home area were washed out.  The tsunami came to the train station, but it seemed it did not go further.  The tsunami did not reach my home because its altitude is a little high though it is just about 1.2 km away from the coast.  I got to know my home seemed safe.  But I could not know where were my parents when the earthquake occurred.  If they were in the downtown...such a negative imagination comes out many times.

According to the news and information on Twitter, there were many people evacuated from the tsunami and they were in a public shelter, but they really lacked of foods and water.  It was very cold for them because the temperature was below 0 and it was snowing.  What made it worse was there was no electricity and oil, so the condition in the shelters.  Each public shelter made lists of evacuees, and the prefecture police office collects them and showed them online.  These are quite important information source for us.

Later, I found there was my mother's name on the list.  She seemed to be in the city court in the downtown of Kamaishi.  But I was wondering where my father was.  Why they are not together...?

(Written by Take, Lund University)

My Hometown Was Devastated

11th March, 2011-.

Japan is a country which often experiences earthquakes.  Perhaps most of us are quite used to small shakes.  There was a news about a big earthquake occurred in north-eastern Japan on 9th March and a little height tsunamis came to the coastal cities.  I did not worry about it at all because the damage was quite small.

I went to the lecture around at 9:00 AM and met my teacher when I opened the door.  This day was one of the most important day for me since our group was going to give a presentation of a project.    I said him "good morning" and he responded me,

"Did you hear the news about the earthquake?"

I thought it was about the earthquake occurred 2 days ago, but it was not.  He said, "today" and "400 km northern from Tokyo."  I immediately opened the news web page and found the name of my hometown "Kamaishi" and "4.2 m tsunami (later I got to know it was over 10m)."  Another article said, "magnitude 8.9."  I was really shocked because I knew how tsunami at this height was powerful and destructive, and thought of safety of my parents soon.  I made a phone call to my father, but it did not work.  "The phone lines are full", I thought.  All of my classmates became quiet when they heard the conversation between the teacher and me, and someone said, "Japan is prepared for this kind of natural disasters, so they will manage well."  But I knew this was the different.  I could not be optimistic at all and got a little panic , and went to another room to be alone and calm down.

I called and sent emails to my parents many times, but I could not make it.  The more I reloaded the web page, the more bad news came.  It was easy to guess so many people were already washed out.  Later, the international news was showing the video of my hometown.  The massive tsunami was washingout ships and cars, and roads were disappeared.  On another video, the buildings in the downtown of Kamaishi was being destroyed by tsunami, and collapsed houses were spreading out dust into the sky.  The sky was becoming gray and gray with the dust.  I could not believe it.  Is this my hometown where I grew up for 18 years?  Is this the city I walked just 2 months ago?  Yes, my hometown was being devastated.

After going back home, I checked different types of news to know what happened in my home region Tohoku (North East) Region, and tried to contact with my family.  The media broad-casted overall information such as height of tsunami, which cities got damaged, how many people were missing...  But there was no detailed information about my hometown such as which areas were destroyed, where did people evacuated, etc...  Later, I got to know the reasons were simple: the cell phone tower was collapsed, fixed phones were not available, the internet in local areas was not available.  From the news, I got to know many coastal cities in north-eastern Japan had severely damaged by the tsunamis.  Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture had oil spilled, which made huge fires in the downtown.  Minami Soma had the large crop fields were covered with dark colored sea water and huge debris.  Many coastal cities experienced over 10 m tsunami, and a lot of lives were immediately taken.  It was too early that tsunami came after the earthquake, only 30-60 mins after the earthquake.  Many people tried to run away from the tsunamis, but the time was not enough.

I really worried about my parents, relatives, and friends.  Eventually I had been watching news until 6 a.m. on the next day.  But there was little useful information.

(Written by Take, Lund University)

Thinking of you, Japan.

Hello.

Thank you for visiting our blog :)

Act for Japan in Sweden & Denmark started as a group of Japanese exchange students at Lund University soon after the earthquake and tsunami hit our home country Japan on March 11, 2011. Now, it also spreads in Malmö and Copenhagen.

I couldn't just believe such a catastrophe really happened in my country even though I was keeping myself updated about it through TV, newspapers, and Twitter. But, without experiencing anything regarding the earthquake, tsunami, or fear from the effects of nuclear power plants, my normal life was going on here in Sweden. Understanding what's happening there from my heart was very difficult for me, and that might have made me more upset and disappointed.

Now, I think I've slightly moved forward. More than 40 other Japanese and international friends are together and are very positive to take the greatest actions that we can do here.

Svenska Röda Korset is our official partner, in addition to the amazingly supportive Lund University. We promise every single activity, from street donations to charity events, will be trustworthy and all collected money will be donated to Japanese Red Cross via the Swedish one.

We would like you to be aware that it takes not a month or year but a decade or more for many of the victims of natural disasters to be back to their normal life. I wish the terrible happening wouldn't fade away from our memories and want to say to Japan and the people, "I´m thinking of you always."


Thanks for your sympathies and interest in Act for Japan in Sweden & Denmark.
If you're willing to donate, please visit the website of Svenska Röda Korset!
Also, you're more than welcome to become a member of our facebook group :)