The 3.11

On March 11^th, after a lunch break, I was sitting at a desk in my office and translating an operation manual of an agricultural machine made in Germany. A regular drowsiness in the afternoon came and I was about to stand up to go to a vending machine located at the corner of the office and grab a can of iced-coffee.

“You got a phone call from Singapore on line one,” said our receptionist.  I soon recognized it was Keng Wah, the marketing manager of Asia and Pacific region of JCB. We were now placing an order of a Fastrac, a big tractor which is capable of running on the public highway with 80km/H and have been discussing with Keng what kind of essential and optional features on the tractor will suite for the customer since that morning.

While we were talking on the phone, Fumi, one of my co-worker and a daughter of my company’s president, shouted “An earthquake !?”.  I didn’t feel anything at that moment but in a few seconds, I felt the floor of the office start rolling. Initially, it provided an illusion that I was having dizziness but I soon realized some drawings and photo frames were swinging on the wall.

“Keng, we are having an earthquake here”, I said.

“Oh, that’s too bad. Are you guys alri……..”, he replied but the line broke up.

Kazuo, the president stood up and said “ Isn’t it very big?” and I replied, “No, it isn’t”. We all thought it would stop soon, but the rolling was gradually getting bigger and bigger.  Having experienced being hit by countless of small and medium earthquakes, we Japanese can immediately weigh the differences between “Big” and “Small” by feeling what type of shock we are having.  The rolling didn’t stop and got much bigger. “No. It’s big!” I said to the president as I supported a bookshelf behind my desk.

Everybody in the office stood up and one of them said “ Look at those trees out side!”. 　Street-side trees were swaying and I could see some people getting out of the opposite building. “It’s really big, isn’t it”, said Kazuo and “Yeah, and it’s long”. I replied. We felt the shock last for over two minutes.

I became to be worried about my co-leagues who were working in our stock facility and went into the building, which is connected to my office room by a door.  There are tons of machine parts and huge tires accumulated on the shelves and I thought they might have crumbled and my buddies may be buried under those stuff. I shouted “ Are you guys OK?”.

Fortunately, Mamoru, the parts manager and another staff have already got out of the building and they were waiting for us outside.

Mamoru was smoking and said, “You should immediately get out of the building when an earthquake like this hits!”.  “Yeah, you’re right.”  I replied to his smiling face. Workers of the other offices have also got out of their buildings with a troubled look.

Anyway, the earthquake has gone.

Getting back to the office desk, I was about to resume my task, translating.

Suddenly, Fumi, next to my desk said, “It was near Sendai and its magnitude was 7.9!”.  Kazuo and I took a look at her computer screen. It was a website of Met Office Japan.

“ Gosh! It’s massive”, Kazuo said.

I was worried about Sugi, JK7UST lives in the city of Natori just south of Sendai and thought there might have been a lot of casualties.

There was no TV sets and radios in our office so we couldn’t figure out the situation in the area located about 500Kms south of our island.  But Fumi kept gleaning information on the Internet accessing Twitter, Facebook and other news sources.

It seemed to be worsening every moment and we held our breath for fear when Fumi showed us a photo, which was uploaded on Twitter.

We weren’t sure where it was taken but there were a lot of vehicles engulfed by Tsunami. “No, way! It must be a Computer Graphic.” Kazuo said. I stopped my work and concentrated on seeking news on the Internet.

As I surfed websites of Kyodo News Service, NHK Breaking News, Japan Met Office and Yomiuri Breaking News etc., I become to feel rather strongly that the photo was a real one and it was actually a massive disaster.

“I wonder if Takumi is al-right”, Kazuo mentioned about his first son resides in Tokyo and tried to call him several times. But at that time, we recognized most of the mobile phones in main Island were not reachable and even some fixed phones in town were inaccessible.

After the several trials, I could reach my son Taiga at home.

“There is no damage and trouble at home and I switched off the oil heating”, said Taiga. “Good. But be aware of aftershocks and get out of the house when big one comes”, I advised him and he said “ OK, dad”.

I was relieved a little.

<To be continued.>