Through experience about 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

If I am correct, it was around 3 p.m. on 11th March 2011, early last year when huge earthquake hit east coastal area in Japan. I was in Tokyo at the moment, reading some books while lying.

First thing I thought was "Earthquake, it's coming !". People in Japan are always scared but ready for it. All children in Japan practice for surviving from earthquake when you are elementary, junior high, high school student. You have chance to do it after you join the company. It's not rare for this island to be shaken by it. It's depends on where you live, but we feel it every few months shaking the land even there is not so big one hit. I mean, you can't run from it.

It's some kind of destiny for suffering from quake, but that time, last year, was far from it.

Tsunami engulf coastal area in the east, so called "Tohoku" area. The word tsunami is originally Japanese word. So you may think people in Japan know well about Tsunami. However, that tsunami was far far far bigger and terrible than we ever imagined or experienced. Who can predict over 40 meters tsunami engulf us ? Almost all dikes placed along the coast were useless.

In Tokyo, as I experienced, it was from minimal shakiness, and few seconds later, became huge. I woke up and find fridge was start moving. I rushed to it and try not to move any more. This action was actually not correct. When you feel quake, first thing you must do is escaping from tall things like bookshelves, fridge, anything that is tall so that you could avoid to drop it.

I don't know how much time it lasted, but I felt it was around a few minutes. After stop it, I grabbed my cell phone and tried to contact my wife. But it took 20 minutes to talk to her since many people rush to call someones and overcrowded the lines.

I checked inside my home. Fortunately, some dish dropped but any damage weren't found. Gas was stopped due to the safety reasons, but shortly after the quake, it recovered.

I went out and walked through the nearest station. Station staffs repeatedly said that all trains were stopped and don't know when it would restart. Some walls on the station were fallen, but at the point, most people didn't know anything about Tsunami, nor problem about nuclear plant.

Since I have no TV in my home, I checked online news on my computer. And I realized the main source of that quake was in Tohoku, and horrible Tsunami hit there.

Through the night in the day, I kept watching news which showed on computer. There were not enough information to understand everything of this tragedy, but it's enough to understand it was true tragedy. Death toll jumped hour by hour, nobody knew how many people were missing. I knew any rescue people did the best, but I was totally helpless.

The date had been changed to the next day, slowly trains were restarted.

And we all realized that nuclear plants that were damaged from Tsunami was devastated and we were running out of electricity. Then so called "power cut schedule" started. People in Tokyo was confused, yet the most confused people were there in Tohoku. Big earthquake still hit in Tohoku many times. Actually, it's continued even now.

Japan seems to recover from Tohoku earthquake. power cut schedule was finished,  quake become decrease slowly, people start working again. But for many persons, this life-changing event never be removed from their memories. Many people lost their families, relatives or friends. So am I. There is no one in this country who has nothing to do with Tohoku earthquake.

Well, I could talk whether we use nuclear power or not.
But I spare this kind of controversial discussion as always.
I am one of them who just hope to live peacefully in this country.