As the winter goes on, little signs pop up here and there that it won't last forever. It's February, and it's still cold most of the time, but the sun rises higher in the sky each day, we get a warm wind blowing in from the south that makes the daylight hours feel warmer than they actually are, and here and there some flowers are in bloom.
But the area I live, Chiba Prefecture in Japan, and the Kanto Plain as a whole, have a different kind of problem to deal with this winter. And not just this winter - it's affected everything in our lives and will continue to affect them for years to come.
Last year on Friday, March 11th at 2:46PM JST the big one hit - the Tohoku Earthquake. When it happened I was working at my school. When it hit I knew it was different. It was much bigger than any quake I'd ever felt. Within a minute or so the rumbling stopped, but we got hit by several big aftershocks, and even after we were all in the school's field with the students, you could see the flagpoles shaking and windows vibrating for at least a half hour.
It was terrifying, but I have to say that I'm thankful that I was still at work because I definitely wouldn't have wanted to be driving home at the time, or worse yet, in my apartment, where I would come back an hour or so later to find a stack of broken dishes and books and DVDs scattered about.
It was also good to be in a situation where people were relying on me. I know it may sound odd, but as a teacher I didn't have time to go into panic mode, because I (and I'm sure my coworkers) could feel the eyes of our students on us. We had to maintain calm, evacuate everyone and make sure they were safe. We didn't have time to worry any more than about the kids under our care before us. It would be later that the worries and fears would set in.
That night I couldn't sit in my room alone and just wait for aftershocks to hit (any one of which I thought might send my apartment tumbling down), and I didn't have the desire really to clean up and prepare dinner, so I walked up the hill to a little Chinese restaurant and sat and ate and had a few beers to drink, and talked with the staff and other customers.
An odd thing, though, was the phone situation. After the quakes hit and the phone lines all got tied up, for some reason my smartphone could still get a a data signal. Within minutes of the quake I was able to see the news report about its epicenter, and was able to give info to the other teachers at my school that wasn't available any other way. I also was able to send messages to family, and thankfully could connect to everyone through Facebook about what was happening. It was the first time I was really thankful that I'd always been a tech head and early adopter. And one year later tons of my coworkers have iPhones and android smartphones.
Over the next few hours we would see how huge the disaster was in text blurbs on my phone. Then the next day the pics and video of the tsunami would appear on TV for real. It was the most disgusting display of the violent (almost malevolent seeming) side of nature I've ever seen. Of course similar disasters have hit before - tidal waves in China, the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami in 2004 (which resulted in over 200,000 deaths), forest fires, tornadoes, sunken ferries and bus wrecks - the list goes on endlessly. But for me this was the first time I'd seen and been affected by something so big so directly.
Over the next few days we were greeted by more news of the growing number of dead and missing, and the huge numbers displaced. It was still winter in the Tohoku area of Japan and millions were without electricity or running water.
We also learned of the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant, a disaster no one really even wanted to believe was happening.
I will go into more detail about the next few days after the disaster, and how it has affected my life and the lives of people around me in the days to come. I plan on posting a blog post a day about the disaster and aftereffects, leading up to the 1 year anniversary.
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