It's hard to put into words the emotions that come up whenever I think about the tsunami. To this day it causes insomnia, mood swings and terrible pangs of survivor's guilt. I guess that shows the power of such an event as I wasn't directly affected long term by it, unlike my friends and colleagues who lost their houses, possessions and loved ones.
I took a lot of photos during the first few weeks. One of them was even used as the cover of a BBC article. Kuji wasn't as badly damaged as Noda was 10 miles south, but a lot of lives were affected.
March 11th was my last day of work for the school year and I'd just finished my last lesson at 14:00.
At around 14:45 the earthquake alarms started going off on all of the phones in the staff room. This caused my friend sitting next to me to start panicking and screaming. To try and calm her down I pushed her under a desk whilst I went under my desk and held her hand. The earthquake was 6 minutes long in total, there was a lot of screaming, it felt like forever.
After the earthquake we lost all power in the school, the students were evacuated to the football fields in case the structure of the school buildings weren't intact.
We had a battery operated radio on whilst organizing the students into their classes and counting numbers. There were warnings of a tsunami coming in 20 minutes. The air raid sirens were now going off around the town too, telling us to get to higher ground.
The teachers all got together for a meeting, after much discussion they decided... to cancel school on Saturday. This is why I love Japan, even during natural disasters discussing work was the main priority!
I was told to go home, I lived on the top floor of a four storey building so it seemed the safe thing to do.
Driving home was crazy as all the power was out so there were no traffic lights operating. In the center of Kuji a sushi chef and businessman were directing traffic.
I sat in my house and waited for everything to blow over for around 2 hours.
My house wasn't affected by the tsunami but the commercial park 2 minutes away got pretty flooded. These photos were taken two days after.
A few of us stayed at Erica's that night. There still wasn't any power and we had no way of communicating with the outside world, or with friends in other coastal cities.
As this was the case, myself and a lot of my friends were placed on the British missing persons list for some time (to the horror of my family), I actually managed to get in touch with my Dad by emailing him through a computer powered by a car battery as a sort of punk generator ( I have no idea how this worked).
The next day we assessed the situation around the local area and decided to spend the night at our friends printing factory in a big group as there was still no power or running water and it made us feel safer throughout the constant aftershocks.
The coastline of Kuji suffered heavy damage. All of the tourist attractions like the aquarium and the Alma diving museum were destroyed. In land, the damage was quite superficial, the river leading into central Kuji flooded. We found sea fish still alive on the ground about a mile from sea.
That night in the factory, we set up a huge gas heater (March is still very much winter in Iwate) and played folk songs and ate snacks - we had a good time. It was good to see my friends again. It felt very surreal considering the experience we just had and the things some of us had witnessed to be enjoying ourselves. I guess everyone has different ways of dealing with traumatic events.
I only wanted to write a short account about the events that happened as it's the second anniversary today and I'm sad I can't be there with all my friends for it. But I will say that I am closer to certain people in my life now because of what happened, and I'm thankful that my friends and family were there for me when I needed them. My heart goes out to all who were affected on that day.
Kuji on the map
I took a lot of photos during the first few weeks. One of them was even used as the cover of a BBC article. Kuji wasn't as badly damaged as Noda was 10 miles south, but a lot of lives were affected.
My photo on the BBC article
March 11th was my last day of work for the school year and I'd just finished my last lesson at 14:00.
At around 14:45 the earthquake alarms started going off on all of the phones in the staff room. This caused my friend sitting next to me to start panicking and screaming. To try and calm her down I pushed her under a desk whilst I went under my desk and held her hand. The earthquake was 6 minutes long in total, there was a lot of screaming, it felt like forever.
After the earthquake we lost all power in the school, the students were evacuated to the football fields in case the structure of the school buildings weren't intact.
We had a battery operated radio on whilst organizing the students into their classes and counting numbers. There were warnings of a tsunami coming in 20 minutes. The air raid sirens were now going off around the town too, telling us to get to higher ground.
The teachers all got together for a meeting, after much discussion they decided... to cancel school on Saturday. This is why I love Japan, even during natural disasters discussing work was the main priority!
I was told to go home, I lived on the top floor of a four storey building so it seemed the safe thing to do.
Driving home was crazy as all the power was out so there were no traffic lights operating. In the center of Kuji a sushi chef and businessman were directing traffic.
I sat in my house and waited for everything to blow over for around 2 hours.
My house wasn't affected by the tsunami but the commercial park 2 minutes away got pretty flooded. These photos were taken two days after.
A few of us stayed at Erica's that night. There still wasn't any power and we had no way of communicating with the outside world, or with friends in other coastal cities.
As this was the case, myself and a lot of my friends were placed on the British missing persons list for some time (to the horror of my family), I actually managed to get in touch with my Dad by emailing him through a computer powered by a car battery as a sort of punk generator ( I have no idea how this worked).
The next day we assessed the situation around the local area and decided to spend the night at our friends printing factory in a big group as there was still no power or running water and it made us feel safer throughout the constant aftershocks.
The coastline of Kuji suffered heavy damage. All of the tourist attractions like the aquarium and the Alma diving museum were destroyed. In land, the damage was quite superficial, the river leading into central Kuji flooded. We found sea fish still alive on the ground about a mile from sea.
That night in the factory, we set up a huge gas heater (March is still very much winter in Iwate) and played folk songs and ate snacks - we had a good time. It was good to see my friends again. It felt very surreal considering the experience we just had and the things some of us had witnessed to be enjoying ourselves. I guess everyone has different ways of dealing with traumatic events.
Kuji river the day after
We listened to the radio at night. There were mentions of trains going missing and nuclear reactors but it was very vague. We knew a lot less about what was happening than most people in the world.
The power came back on in certain areas of the town very late that night, I remember looking at the Lawson store opposite us and seeing the lights flicker on slowly.
The next few days consisted of driving around, providing for shelters in the south. We went on a few runs to one of the schools my friend worked at that was now being used as a homeless shelter. One time an army helicopter landed in the field just as we had arrived. I caught it on my phone camera.
A lot of houses and cars in Noda were completely destroyed. The river passing through Noda became a sea of houses. It also didn't help that we were experiencing heavy snowfall as is expected in Iwate this time of year.
A lot of houses and cars in Noda were completely destroyed. The river passing through Noda became a sea of houses. It also didn't help that we were experiencing heavy snowfall as is expected in Iwate this time of year.
The aftershocks kept coming (and they still do), there were a few tsunami warnings over the coming months but nothing as serious as before. We had to evacuate our houses on several occasions.
I only wanted to write a short account about the events that happened as it's the second anniversary today and I'm sad I can't be there with all my friends for it. But I will say that I am closer to certain people in my life now because of what happened, and I'm thankful that my friends and family were there for me when I needed them. My heart goes out to all who were affected on that day.
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