To the people who pay a visit to this site on the occasion of the Japan Disaster centering in Tohoku and Sendai area.
Thank you very much for your concern about the earthquake of 9.0 M that occurred in Sendai area at 14:46 on March 11, 2011 (JST). I am lucky to tell you that my wife and I were safe!
We were at home in Sendai at that time when an earthquake alarm began to sound through my cellular phone actually about 5 seconds before we felt the real earthquake. My wife rushed to the kitchen to turn off the house heating system and the terrible shakes began. The earthquake continued more than 5 minutes and we felt as if the house might have torn down. We understood it might be the quake we had expected in this area in 30 years but the size well exceeded our prediction. Soon after the first shock stopped, we heard the tsunami warning was issued. Everyone was afraid how big the tsunami would be while we were busy to make sure the safety of the elderly people in our neighborhood. It is reported that more than 10,000 people were killed (including missing people) in only Miyagi Prefecture by an enormously large, strong and high Tsunami (15 m or higher on some coasts) that came just after the first strong quake. As I am not living on the shore (about 10 km off the shore), we had not serious damage in our area. However, electricity came back two days later although water supply on my street did not stop even after the first shock thanks to the recent replacement of the pipes into quake-resistant ones. Unfortunately, telephone lines and natural gas service have not yet been available. Right now we are short of petrol for cars, and oil for heating because an oil refinery on the Sendai coast was destroyed and burnt for 5 days amid many roads destroyed. At the time, there is neither Shinkansen nor highway so far. The platforms of Sendai Station were destroyed, while Sendai Airport was seriously attacked by the Tsunami. I do not know when the Sendai station and airport will open in the aftermath of the earthquakes. Therefore, we look like as if we were living in a remote isolated island. In this situation, the living condition of the people staying at home is deteriorating. There is a shortage of food, and Tohoku University announced to close by the end of April so that many students have vacated Sendai.
We are seriously worrying about nuclear power stations in the neighboring Prefecture Fukushima at this moment.
We are managing by ourselves anyhow and hope everything goes well, and we are looking forwards to seeing you sometime in the future.
On March 24, 2011, major highway services bound for Sendai were resumed.
On April 4, 2011, our natural gas service came back at home and our telephone line was reconnected, thanks to rescue teams for utility service from Osaka, Nagoya, and Niigata.