The Earthquake's Destruction and the Aftermath

(Note: This is my account of the earthquake that hit the Izumi ward of Sendai on Friday, March 11, 2011. This is my experience of the earthquake and cannot speak for the experiences of others -- not other teachers at MeySen, nor the people of Izumi as a whole, nor the people of Sendai as a whole, since the experiences and the earthquake's effects were different for everyone.)

Thank you to everyone for your encouragement and prayers.  Kris and I are currently (as of today) at a hotel outside of Misawa Air Force Base in Aomora.  We are 230 miles north of the nuclear power plants and are safe from any radaition.  We will be staying here until it is safe to return to Sendai to help with the relief efforts.  9 of us are staying here in Misawa.  Many teachers have returned to the states (a large number of those were teachers whose contracts were ending in 2 weeks anyway).  Several teachers and staff remain at MeySen and are helping with the relief efforts and beginning to get the school ready for the new school year. Please continue to pray for the people of Sendai and for my friends who remained behind at MeySen.


The day the earthquake hit was a day that drastically changed our journey here in Japan.  When the earthquake hit on Friday, March 11 at 2:46 pm, Kris and I were both at work (he at the upper campus, I at the lower campus) at MeySen Academy in Sendai.  At the time, no students were in the building, as the kindergarten students had left an hour before, and the elementary students would have been arriving an hour later.  I know some people are curious to hear the dramatic deails of what living through the earthquake was like and how it felt, but for the sake of our families (who are already incredibly worried about us due to media hype and the situation over here), we won't go into dramatic details.  For those details, you can visit the blogs of our friends, Bethany and Danielle.  For now, let's just say that many of us were genuinely scared for our lives.  We all prayed for Jesus' protection and I have no doubht in my mind that it is His protection that kept us safe the whole time -- through the earthquake, aftershocks, tsunamies, and nuclear power plant problems.


One of my coworkers, who had been in the hospital on the day of the earthquake while recovering from a foot surgery, described her experience to us.  She said that everyone was screaming in Japanese and she couldn't understand anything they were saying and no one could understand what she was saying.  And she crawled to the doorway of her hospital room, pulling her IV behind her and praying to God.


I hid under a desk in the immersion office (along with many other teachers) until the earthquake was over and we could safetly evacuate the building.  We stood huddled together in the cold, sharing our alarm and fear over the earthquake.  We stood together and encouraged each other through the after shocks - which did not cause the building any further damage but did frighten me and a few other teachers every time we felt one.  A few people ran into the buildings to get us our coats, as it started to snow and we were still not yet able to go inside.  I found out from one of the other teachers that Kris (and everyone else in the upper part of campus) was fine.  This was a huge relief.


After the earthquake we survayed the damage, which we thought was substational at the time (as we were ignorant to the reality of central and south sendai's devestation): cracks in the walls and ground, lighting that had fallen to the floor, water on the foor from splashing out of fish tanks and leaving them alsmost empty), pianos overturned along with chairs, shelves, computers, etc.  But all the buildings on campus and within eyesight were standing. 


Our electricity, gas (which is what is used to heat all the buildings we use), and water went out immediately, but the school did a really good job of taking care of us and making sure we had what we needed. Mostly everyone stayed together and slept in the immersion building, partially for comfort and support and partially so the school could set up a central location for us to eat and sleep and be safe.  The staff and our supervisors and the people who help run the school (Christina, Daniel, Esther, Judith, James, Phillip, John, and many others) worked nonstop to feed us and provide us with wather.  They brought down generators and cooked food for us, used generators to create a pump to access water from the well, helped us fetch water from the pond in the school so we could flush toilets, and helped to keep us safe.  They stood in lines for hours to procure gas (limited to 10 liters per vehicle) and food (also limited -- which meant people stood in mulitple lines for multiple hours to get us food).  Not only that, but they also took in families of two Japanese teachers who could not get into their homes.


The scariest part of that first night without power, running water, and heat, were the aftershocks.  It seemed like the ground never stopped shaking!  (This is a bit of an exaggeration, but there were many aftershocks throughout the night; they lessened the next day, but we experienced them for over a week after the earthquake).  Whenever I felt an aftershock, my heart began to race and I felt a surge of panic. I had to coax myself to remain calm, but wasn't able to feel relief until the shaking subsided and I knew it wasn't going to turn into another large quake.

A few things fell over in our apartment during the quake.  Something fell onto my computer and caused a crack on the screen, but we were very lucky that both of our computers were not seriously damaged or out of commission.  The biggest destruction to our apartment was that a mirror in the entry way had fallen and shattered all over the floor in a million pieces.  (Btw, who puts a mirror above an entry way in an area that commonly has earthquakes and doesn't bolt it to the wall??????)  We were very fortunate that not even a plate broke!

At first we didn't realize the extent or severity of the situation.  We had no idea that central and south Sendai had been hit so terribly and that buildings collapsed everywhere.  In fact, by evening, the most we'd heard of was 30 dead from a collapsed apartment in downtown Sendai and that this earthquake was the strongest that any missionairies (who have been living here for over 30 years) had experienced in Japan.  We thought the power and water would be back on in a day or two, the cracks would be patched up quickly, and school would resume within a week.  Things didn't seem too bad to us when remained on the campus the next day, as we relaxed in the sunshine and ate ice cream for the graudation ceremony (that didn't happen due to the quake) that was melting.  How can you be scared or worried when you are having an impromptu ice cream party outside in the sun?


But slowly we heard news reports of the extent of the damage and realized how truly blessed we were and how God really had protected us. We learned that the earthquake was the largest in Japan's history, that tsunamies had whiped out the Sendai airport and a train of commuters going up to Matsushima, and that meltdowns and fires were a possiblity at nuclear power plants 80km away.  I began to realize how drastic the situation was in other parts of Sendai and worried about my family and friends worring about us. 

As for me, I was safe at the school and, although dirty and tired and worried, I had nothing to really complain about compared to other people in Sendai.  We didn't have to wait in line for hours for 2 jugs of water, like our neighbors, since the school has its own well.  True, we didn't get to shower for days and we didn't have electricity or running water.  We even had to fill up a bucket from the pond in the school everytime we needed to use and flush the toilet.  But we had water to drink and safe shelter and plenty of food, and people to help us.  Kris and I had a community of support with the other teachers.  That community of support was huge -- we helped and encouraged each other through the days following the earthquake.  We prayed together.  Six of us formed a mini-clean-up crew and helped each other clean up our apartments so that no one had to face it alone.  We made jokes when we could and played games to lighten the mood.  I walked around with a baby bunny in my hands often over those days -- it turns out, playing with bunnies is very theraputic lol.

On Saturday we heard rumors that there was a phone line for foriegners to call out at the train station, so we walked to the train station. Though we saw broken lights, fallen tiles, cracked walls, and splits in pavement, and people waiting in lines that wound around the block to get into the grocery store, we were surprised to see buildings all standing and to not see more extensive damage.  It was really encouraging to us.  But when we got to city hall, where the phone line was rumored to be, we got a bigger glimpse of the sad reality of things.  People were camped out in the building, sleeping on tarps, huddled around genereator-powered heaters, and waiting in lines for water or to charge their cell phones.  It felt very sad and depressing.  Although there was no phone line for foreigners and we did not get to call home, we did come away from city hall realizing how truly blessed we were to have faired so well and how very grateful we were to the school for taking such good care of us so we didn't have to face the situation alone as scared foreigners.

Amidst the earthquake's destruction, I experienced God's healing and providencial hand in many ways.  I will share these things in my next post.