Large Earthquake In Japan
Role:
Date: March 11th, 2011
Today I woke up a little later than usual, had my daily bath (the “think tank”) where I plan the days or next weeks work in my mind, grabbed a slice of toast and some tea and headed to my co-lab working space. My daily journey involves a 2 minute walk to the station, jump on the metro 2 stops and another 2 minutes walk to the building. Routine and taken for granted.
Sitting in the office was just like any other day, fired up my Mac and started trawling through Xcode.
2:30pm. At first, the shakes to the co-lab here in Tokyo were slight, but they escalated in intensity. Everyone in the co-lab uses headphones to enter the “zone” as it were. Hardly a noisy office but we all rent desks independently from one another so no radio or other music system is in effect.
Heads started popping up from behind partitions like meerkats inspecting the safety outside their home. Eyes met. We all knew this wasn’t your average earthquake and got the hell out of there. Mercifully we are only on the 3rd floor. (US system in Japan, literally 3)
Our street was packed with office workers who had the same idea. We all stood in silence as the quake started to escalate to it’s epiphany. Screams and shocked cries replaced the silence as the street turned to Jelly.
Near my office is a hair dressers on the 2nd floor. Two old ladies were getting their hair curled. Seemingly uninterested in this once in a thousand year event. Curled hair is far more important in this part of Tokyo.
As the quake hit, a postman on a motorbike came up to the office and delivered the post. He went about it with routine glamour.
Nearby 20 storey AO Tower swayed with workers glued to the windows looking out in terror.
After what seemed like a whole packet of cigarettes and several liters of canned coffee I returned to the office, I had a quick chance to change my facebook status but phones were out. Below is a photo of what we found. A decision from the building manager was made to lock the place up and leave. Wave after wave of aftershocks told us this was a good idea. At this point, no one know the full extent of the quake and what it might bring or when it might end.
I live within half an hour or so walking distance of my office so I decided to go home and check on my apartment. Here’s a photo of what I found inside.
It was like a giant had picked up the building and set it down again, like a dolls-house.
As the quakes kept coming, Twitter and Facebook evolved from pointless time wasting activities to my first life line. Whats happened? Where did it happen? Everything was found out from the network of friends and colleagues in Tokyo. Slowly it dawned on us that this event was catastrophic in North East Japan. Just how much devastation the tsunami wreaked was yet to be found out, reports of a 10m high wave coming 2km inland seemed unreal at first, thats taller than your house. Mercilessly the reports were true.
All I could do was create a path amongst the debris of my apartment, so that when I return with enough whiskey to take out a horse, I might not cause more damage to my already ruined bubble of existence.
(NOTE: my apartment was bulldozed a year later because of irreparable structural damage.)