Polite request Most of us actually here in Japan were chased out of the last thread by all the nuclear talk. Please could you not bring those arguments into this one - I’d really like to keep it to actual earthquake and tsunami discussion. Thanks.
Today is three weeks since the quake and tsunami and all of us here are now dividing our lives into BQ and AQ eras, even those of us who have only indirectly been affected.
I got a happy phone call today from my husband who was returning from his first break from the rescue mission since March 11th. His group got 24 hours in a camp up the coast. They had one night in real beds, ate three real hot meals as opposed to ration packs, had baths and the best of all, did laundry. I asked how they were and he said that last week people were kind of at the end of their tether. Most of them had colds and there are many broken fingers, hands and toes from clearing the rubble. They were mentally and physically exhausted but he said the mood had lifted considerably having had a day’s rest. They were not allowed to go out of the camp or buy anything so as not to take anything from the citizens. There is still no end date in sight for him coming home.
In Hokkaido we have had some aftershocks, maybe one or two a day, but that is nothing to the 866 and counting shocks that there have been in total since March 11th. We have minor damage in our attic room around the main beams of the house, the kitchen cabinets have moved out of alignment with each other, a closet door now sticks on the floor upstairs, and the floor in our 2nd floor hallway has dipped. But as I stood outside and watched our street ripple, I can’t be surprised.
The kids are standing up to Dad being away OK ish. The ten year old woke up crying today saying he’d had a dream that something bad had happened to him but we were able to call him and when he heard his Dad’s voice he was instantly OK again. The teenager is being unnervingly good and helpful. It’s weird!
The general mood around here is huge, deep mourning and a sense that life might never be bright again. I hope that is not actually true…
How are things with the rest of the Japan Dopers? Everyone please feel free to ask and discuss stuff but please, let’s not get into the nuclear debate here. Let’s concentrate on the human stuff.
I am interested, and curious as to how other Tokyo-ers are doing.
I am in the US, but my friends and their families are in Tokyo and said that none of them have a scratch, nor do any of their apartments, that all the earthquake prep actually worked perfectly there.
Do you folks on site in Tokyo find this true in general?
Are any phone companies still offering free/reduced calling to Japan? We’re still trying to track down my husband’s friend. If we have to pay full cost to make another phone call we will, but it sure would be nice if we didn’t have to pay the full rate given our precarious finances.
I’m not sure if there are free phone calls any more. Have you tried the Google Person Finder?
I think that most people are fine in Tokyo, though it depends where. Some outlying towns such as Chiba got quite a lot of damage, with liquefaction and cracked roads etc.
I found this tsunami video on Youtube last night. It was taken in Kita Ibaraki, not Tokyo but nearish. The guy merely got a big fright, and it seems that his car was swamped judging by his comments (“Oh no… and there’s so much loan left to pay on it.” etc)
I find the milder videos to be more scary in a way than the huge disaster ones. It’s somehow more understandable…
As Auto suggest, use Skype Calling Out. Or Google call. Not expensive either way.
If you need any assistance, PM or email me and we can make a call for you.
We’re back in Tokyo now. At least my wife and I am, we left the little ones back in Taiwan until we can understand the situation a little better.
Riding through Tokyo at 8:00 pm on the way in from the airport was strange to see all the lights out. Supermarkets are dark and convenience stores are dimly lite. There isn’t any water to had yet.
Still, we are safe, and have out homes. My heart goes out to these who lost so much, including loved ones.
A lot of the really badly hit areas do not have phone service yet, so if your husband’s friend is in that area then he might still not be able to call out. Also people in the evacuation centres that do have cell coverage (the cellphone companies have parked trucks outside the big centres) are still having trouble with taking turns to charge them.
Northern Piper it’s his regular work. He’s a member of the Self Defence Forces here. They were assembling their emergency kit within minutes of the quake but it took 48 hours before they were at their designated area because of the distances involved.
More and more raw tsunami footage just keeps being uploaded. I guess what one would expect from such a developed and wired country as Japan.
Kessenuma Not sure where this one is, but it’s one of the few I’ve seen that show the sea conditions before landfall and inundation. The guy must have felt pretty safe where he was, on top of a tsunami wall, but man… just when you think it can’t get any worse, it gets much, much worse.
Cat Whisperer I’m boggled by it too. I look and I look and I can’t believe it. I don’t think anybody here can either.
My husband said he went into a five storey building where the windows were smashed and there was debris on the floor, so the wave reached at least that high there.
Wow. My husband and I were talking about this at dinner today, and we were wondering, how will Japan rebuild from this? Will they attempt to make buildings and seawalls and nuclear reactors safe for the most catastrophic events they can think of, or will they build for a “normal” seismic event?
If you are calling a mobile phone, then the Google Voice calls are quite a bit cheaper. 11 cents for Google voice vs 17.5 cents for Skype. For landlines, they are almost the same. 2 cents vs 2.6 cents.
