A lot had happened since I last blogged. I was planning to write about my adventures and pleasant holiday at Malaysia, but a devastating earthquake happened here in Japan and it's most important for me to blog about our experience about the disaster.
Yesterday, a 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck east coast of Japan and triggered tsunami that battered its coast. The powerful tremor together with the ferocious tsunami destroyed homes, building and killed many lives :(
At about 2.30pm yesterday, I was in the kitchen trying to prepare dishes for an early dinner. I heard a loud noise and everything began to shake violently. I spontaneously headed to the door, ran towards the stairs and went downstairs as fast as I could. It was a little hard as everything was shaking violently and it's hard to get a grip. I was trembling and ran to save my life. I came from Malaysia. We don't have tremors there. But, yesterday's earthquake somehow seemed violent to me. I knew it's serious when people started running behind me as well. We arrived at the ground floor and gathered at a safe area. I was barely able to stand as the ground was shaking quite badly. It was scary to hear the shaking sound coming from the building. I was trembling and was worried about my husband. The tremor lasted for few minutes but seemed like hours to me. Since I ran downstairs unprepared, I was feeling quite cold. I waited for the earthquake to stop and when it appeared safe, I ran back upstairs to our apartment, wore proper winter clothes, grabbed my phone and started calling Satya, my husband. It was dark in our apartment as we lost electricity, gas and water. Even the phone wasn't working. So, I decided to grab my medicine, adequate water, some snacks, our traveling passports hoping to look out for Satya in his office. Just as I was packing, Satya opened the door and entered. I was so happy and relieved to see him.
He told me that he wasn't able to get out of his office until the earthquake stopped. It seems the emergency stairs access were closed. He waited for people to evacuate the building and came back to see me as soon as he can. We were so glad to be together. We both waited downstairs at the safe area until things seemed fine. We were still unable to contact our families as the phone was still down.
When things seemed better, we went back to the apartment still not knowing the seriousness of the earthquake and the epicenter. We waited in our room, dark and cold. After several tries, I was able to check my email on my phone and sent messages to our families.
At about 10pm, the electricity and water supply were reconnected and we felt relieved. We contacted and spoke to our families. We checked the news and was devastated to learn about the major earthquake and disastrous tsunami in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture and its neighboring regions.
I was tired, shocked and was having terrible migraine because of the continuous aftershocks. It happened all night, alerting me to stay safe.
We felt much better and fine this morning. But the news were not pleasing. It was painful to see the after effects of the tsunami at the northern region. The death toll was rising, the damages were terrible and so many people were still missing. The worst part was the news about the radiation leak and the explosion of the nuclear plant in Fukushima. It was a suffering sight, seeing so many people left homeless. But it was encouraging to see many heroic helpers doing all they can to help the victims.
Well, we keep our eyes peeled and keeping ourselves updated to the latest news. We just hope that things will be better soon.
