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)