Friday At 2:46PM
Submitted by mishima on March 14, 2011 - 05:21Last Friday as I sat in my apartment watching Ghost Busters an earthquake started at first it seemed like any other for about 30 seconds. Suddenly that all changed as the power of the quake increased about 100 times. Because so many of my neighbors are retried I went downstairs to check on them as my feet touched the ground it was like having instant vertigo. Its amazing just how difficult it is to keep ones balance when there is no point of reference tell which way the ground was moving.
People here are used to earthquakes so it was very strange too see them fleeing their homes and apartment blocks.
As Japan is quite well prepared for these kinds of events all trains ceased operation, all students were evacuated from their schools as well all other public buildings. After making sure my neighbors were OK I rode my bike around the area while there was some damage it was nothing like that which took place in the worst effected areas.
For the last 3 days deliveries to shoppes have been very limited with all most all the shelves completely empty. Hopefully that will change soon.
The Tsunami didn't effect us and so far we are not effected by the problems in Fukushima. At least not yet as far as the radiation is concerned. Where we are effected is that TEPCO has announced rolling blackouts in the Kanto region the first of which occurred this evening staring at 5pm.
My description of what happened doesn't even do it justice. It might impossible to do just that. One of the places I visited on Friday was the local elementary school all of them were in the school yard and the shocked look on their faces was unsettling so I stayed for a while to help comfort them.