This afternoon at a little before 3 PM shocks from a magnitude 8.9 earthquake hit Tokyo. I was in the Shibuya Red Cross waiting for my doctor's appointment. They'd just taken three vials of blood for tests. My first thought when everything started swaying was that I was passing out, and that I should have eaten a sandwich or something beforehand. My second thought was, oh my god, the last message I ever send anyone is going to be a string of needle and skull emoticons.
Following the initial earthquake there have been ongoing aftershocks, one in the 7-point range. There was a 30 ft tsunami. A nuclear reactor's cooling system began to fail. So far 137 have been confirmed dead, several hundred missing. The death count is only expected to rise. This quake was worse seismically than
Kobe or
Kanto. It was, according to many sources, the worst in Japanese history. I can't get in contact with a friend from Nanzan who is currently living in Sendai, where the worst hit, with her husband. She's pregnant, in her third trimester. I just can't.
When the first little quake hit before the big one I held on to my chair, looked around for reassurance. An older lady sitting behind me noted to her friend, "she isn't used to it." Not in a condescending way. I tried not to cry anyway, wondered if they'd bother identifying my body if the building collapsed around us. We rode out the big one together. It went on for ages. I thought it was never going to end. Every time I thought "is it over?" a new quake started. Between two big ones I went into the ladies' room, braced myself against the wall and sobbed for what felt like hours but must've just been a few minutes. Afterwards I redid my makeup, tried to scrub away the blotchiness. Ultimately the hospital just started dealing with the aftershocks. They hit a manageable level. They called me in for my appointment, finally. My doctor didn't even express surprise regarding the quake. Maybe he didn't know. I thought the shaking was terrifying when it was happening, but there's no comparison to the video I saw later on tv. He told me my results were positive, showed me another graph. My "rheumatoid factor" is going down. He dropped my painkiller dosage, upped my anti-inflammatories, sent me on my way.
I don't think it's really possible to explain a natural disaster, what it feels like. I feel condescending saying it like that, but it's the only way I can hope to explain it. I was holding on for dear life, thinking, I've got to find somewhere to run - but where could I go? It isn't as if the hospital and only the hospital was swaying. Even outside, there'd be new things to fall and topple and kill me. There was no escape, save leaving the island. I was completely powerless. It felt like the world itself was trying to kill me. No way out. There was literally nothing for me to do but hold on, fight back tears, trust Japanese architecture and my own dumb luck and bank all of my good karma on being alive at the end of it. The quakes kept coming and coming. I kept looking to everyone in authority positions - older people, nurses, doctors, the man at the counter giving me my medicine. In the back of my head, I was screaming,
is this normal? this many aftershocks? when will this stop? will this stop? But inevitably, that's not something they'd know, is it? Probably they were just as scared as I was.
I had to put off paying my bill until my next appointment because the hospital's credit card machines were down. I sat down in the hall for a bit next to an old lady and ate a sandwich. I told her, they build these places to last, don't they? She saw my hand shaking, looked like she couldn't decide whether to take it or not. She told me I was very good at seiza, instead. Eventually they started asking for volunteer ambulance drivers. I walked over there, remembered my international driver's license is in my apartment. I hopped on the bus, took it halfway to Shibuya. There were too many cars in the street, we weren't making any progress. I got off a mile or two before my stop. They'd cleared a lane on the road and let pedestrians, hundreds of them, into it, because glass from knocked-out windows had shattered onto the sidewalk. I went into a convenience store when the ground started shaking again and bought a beer. I chugged it in front of the store and then kept walking. Trains out of Shibuya station aren't running, so there were literally thousands of people trapped there. I shoved my way home, up the stairs to my apartment. Turned on the TV and started crying all over again when I saw the damage elsewhere.
This quake was worse than Kobe or Kanto. It was, according to many sources, the worst in Japanese history. But we've learned from that history, especially in Tokyo. In the end I was completely unharmed. A single plate fell off of my kitchen counter where I'd set it. It shattered easily into three pieces - no muss, no fuss. Got an email from the Center confirming that all staff and students are safe. I was completely, totally, unbelievably lucky. If they hadn't replaced all of the TV with news about the damage (which I've kept on in case of alerts) I could close my blinds and pretend that I haven't turned the heater on to save money, that I just don't want to cook with the stove. But the tremors haven't stopped even now. They say we'll have aftershocks into next week. At first I burst into tears every time I felt a tremor. Now I just start trembling. But I haven't really stopped trembling this whole time, to be honest. Every time I hear rattling I jump. I am terrified in a way I can't explain well - like the first time I saw
The Ring and for the rest of the month my mind conjured up images of all the ways that could happen to me, but worse. I got two hours of sleep last night - was planning on taking a nap when I got home from the doctor. I doubt I'll sleep tonight. I think - hope - I'll get over this enduring fear. But right now it's like riding it out in the lobby of the Red Cross Shibuya, internal medicine. Holding on. Holding my breath. Reminding myself it couldn't possibly go on forever, that at some point, come what may, it had to end.
Thank you to everyone for your messages and concern. I've never been simultaneously so angry and so thankful for social networking in my life; thankful that I was able to get in touch with everyone so fast, and furious in a bitter, irrational way that in other places life goes on when I feel like mine is at a standstill, even crumbling.
None of it makes any sense. How can scanlations be coming out for series when I'm not sure if the mangaka are safe? How can the dailypixiv tumblr be running when pixiv is down? How can it be that some chick on facebook is updating about her husband giving her flowers when there are so many people who'll never see each other again? How can so many people just be made homeless all at once? How could this have happened? How can it be that there was nowhere I could have run.
Please keep my friend in your thoughts. Keep everyone here in your thoughts. I am just at a loss.
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