How I Survived a 9.1 Magnitude Earthquake
I have never told anyone this story.
I can’t believe it has been 15 years since March 11th, 2011 — a day which I will never forget.
I moved to Japan from the United States in 2010 when I was 25 in order to teach English.
Originally, I was supposed to move to Japan in the spring of 2011, however an Assistant Language Teacher’s (ALT) mother became ill and he had to return to Canada.
Upon returning from a family vacation to South Dakota, I received a phone call from my new company (in Japan) asking if I could be in Tokyo for training in two weeks.
No problem. I packed my bags, said my goodbyes and off I went.
I arrived in Tokyo on August 15, 2010.
After my initial two week training, I was given a shinkansen ticket and shipped off to Iwate Prefecture, roughly a 2 hour bullet train ride from Tokyo and would call the small town of Senmaya my home for the next year — or so I thought.
Senmaya (千厩) actually means 1,000 (千) horse stables (厩). I came to find out that the town of Senmaya used to be where horses were raised for the samurai class, hence the name.
One of my fondest memories was taking my Suzuki 2-wheel drive compact car up Mt. Murone at dusk.
From the top of that mountain, I would gaze upon some of the most beautiful night skies I had ever seen — which would only be outdone by the night sky I would see the following March.
The day before the earthquake I actually took off, and took the opportunity to take my girlfriend (at the time) to the town of Kesennuma, which was about a 20 minute drive away.
During our drive there, a 6.0 earthquake struck. When we arrived at the parking lot to Hotel Pearl City Kesennuma there was a massive boulder in the parking lot which had fell from up above…foreshadowing the events to come.
Before going to the hotel, we went to the docks.
We were doing our best to skip rocks on the water next to the boat which you see pictured below.
March 11, 2011
That morning started out like most others. Though on this particular day I had forgotten to set my alarm and I woke up late and had to rush out the door.
I was running low on gas, and normally would have had my tank filled, but I thought that I had enough to get to school, so I would just fill it up on my way home.
Needless to say, that never came to fruition…
Despite being low on gas, I would not let it spoil my morning routine — a prompt stop at a combini (convenience store) to purchase a salmon onigiri and a coffee — the breakfast of champions.
I worked as an Assistant Language Teacher in two high schools and both had their graduation the week prior and I had no classes that day.
March 11th was a Friday and was the last day of school that year. (Japanese schools run from April to March)
Around 2:46pm I was in the teachers room reading a book waiting for the day to end.
Ikeda-sensei, who sat next to me, was going over some papers and scribbling some notes. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed her stop writing. She snapped her head at me and our eyes locked.
Earthquake….she said.
I am not sure how many of you have been in a earthquake but the sound of an approaching earthquake sounds kind of like a train—mainly from everything shaking as it approaches.
I was on the 2nd out of four stories and the entire building began to shake. All of the staff in the teachers room and I immediately stood up, bracing ourself on whatever we could.
The lights hanging from the ceiling swayed back and forth puncturing holes into the ceiling before falling to the ground.
The windows to the school pulsated in and out, in and out…and to this day I have no idea how they didn’t shatter.
My school was lucky, because the high school in the town where I lived (Senmaya High School) had all of its windows blown out.
The earthquake would come in 3 waves, the 2nd being the worst. I can see it in my minds eye to this very day like it was yesterday.
All of the teachers faces frozen in time in my memory with the most terrified looks on their faces.
But it was just getting started…
After the first wave hit things seemed like they would die down.
But the then the 2nd wave hit…and none of us were ready for it.
Until this day, I have never seen a more awesome display of power as I saw that day.
Computers were thrown from desks, and the shaking was so bad that it cause the drawers to open and all of the teachers’ files to shake out of them onto the floor.
Storage cabinets were tossed and their contents dumped onto the ground.
The giant Xerox copy machines in the copy room were flung across the room and through the walls as they didn’t weigh anything.
It was as hard to avoid getting hit with debris as it was to stand up.
This video shows what no words of mine can convey and was filmed in Sendai Airport just to the south of me…
Teachers were screaming and some were crying.
Part of me wanted to run to the first floor and get out of the building, but I realized that the entrance to the school was an automatic glass door — and I wasn’t about to take my chances getting shredded by glass.
Everything is still in slow motion in my mind to this day.
During all of this something profound happened.
I have never told anyone this until now, but I heard a voice that day.
That voice came from within me and it said: “Fear not, for you shall be unharmed.”
It was spoken not in words, but in essence.
I never ended up needing the water, and thank God the building didn’t come down.
The March 11th earthquake would end up lasting about 5 or 6 minutes, but I can assure you, it felt like an eternity.
After the shaking from the 3rd wave subsided I took some pictures from my flip phone which you can see below.
Afterwards, all the teachers and students who were in clubs gathered in the parking lot.
Snow began to fall.
Massive aftershocks would continue to hit and I remember watching a 30 ft radio tower which was on the top of the hill where my school was, whipping back and forth, the tip almost touching the ground.
Kudos to whoever built that because I still don’t know how it didn’t break.
In fact, if that earthquake took place in any other country where the building codes weren’t up to par with earthquake regulations, I have no doubt that I would have died that day.
In the distance, I watched mountains jiggle like jell-o molds.
The trees swaying on those mountains always reminded me of the tiny hairs on my arms moving back and forth while under water. That is the best way I can describe it.
As we gathered in the parking lot, one of the teachers who owned a convertible took the top off of it and turned his car on.
Many cars in Japan actually have TVs built into the consoles.
Gradually we started to see the images of the tsunami starting rolling in.
Although I didn’t see the tsunami, I could hear it. It sounded like the sound of the ocean that you can hear from the beach parking lot, only slightly fainter.
Many of my student began crying.
I thought they were just devastated by what they were seeing, but it would turn out that many of my students were from one of the towns that they were being shown images of, Ofunato.
Many of their parents died.
I will never forget watching as groups of students were packed into teachers cars (who lived in the same town) and drove off only to arrive at what you see below.
As I drove home in my car with no gas, I thought about how lucky I was to be alive.
The roads were cracked in half and I barely made the 15 min drive back to Senmaya.
Upon arriving the scene look like it was taken right out of a war movie.
Power poles were snapped in half and power lines lay in the streets. Practically every shop had its windows blown out.
As I reached my apartment’s parking lot my car started to stutter and promptly ran out of gas as I was backing it into my spot.
The building next to my apartment was a furniture warehouse which cracked in half and had furniture pouring out of it.
I was in my apartment all of 5 minutes when an aftershock it and it rained drywall on me.
I would end up living the next 2 weeks or so in my compact car with no heat.
It was very, very cold.
That said, during those nights living in my car I would wake up to aftershocks, heart pounding and unable to sleep. The power to all of northern Japan had been knocked out and I had never seen a night sky as beautiful and clear as I did during those 2 weeks.
Kesennuma, the town I mentioned before you might remember from the news. It was the town that was on fire on the news. Even when I woke up in the middle of the night, when I would look out the the east I could see, and smell, Kesennuma on fire. The fires were so intense, the horizon, from my perspective looked like dawn.
But a mans gotta eat…
Luckily, I had made friend with a local soba (buckwheat) noodle shop owner and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Chida. They were kind enough to invite me every morning, noon and evening to the parking lot of their shop (right around the corner from my apartment) where they made me food.
If you happen to be in Senmaya, be sure and stop at his shop.
In fact, I had more food than I knew what to do with. Every time someone passed me by while I was sitting in my car or walking in town, they would hand me a small bag of food. Bananas, cup ramen, chips. I found myself doing the same, because there was no way I could have eaten all of it.
After two weeks, phone service began.
I got a call from one of my co-workers, Alana.
If you are out there, hi Alana!
She picked me up and drove me back to her and her boyfriend’s place in Ichinoseki (about 30 min away).
It was there that the TV came on and we learned about the Fukushima Power Plant melting down.
We quickly left as I calculated that the winds would start to blow toward our location as spring started.
That turned out to be correct as the school I was working at found radiation hot spots around campus in the following months.
Long story short, we ended up driving through a blizzard in Akita Prefecture on our way to Akita Airport, the only operating airport in northern Japan.
I took a flight to Nagasaki where I stayed with Alana’s college friend for a month before being transferred to Oita Japan, where I would work the next 7 years.
I had always thought it ironic that I had sought refuge from the radiation of a nuclear disaster in Nagasaki of all places.
But it wouldn’t be my last earthquake…
5 years later, in 2016, I would be in the 7.0 Kumamoto earthquake.
But that is a story for another day…
Your story is absolutely stunning! I can't wrap my mind around it.
That’s scary and so devastating for the children that lost their parents . What total death and destruction . A friend who is from Japan snd lives in Florida (go figure) said northern Japan is noted for their very cold weather . Not only was it freezing, but the japanese faced this horrific earthquake coupled with freezing water rushing in from the tsunami dragging cars , ships and homes and people along with it .
Horrific pictures snd videos . Never forget how resilient the Japanese are and how they helped each other and a guy from the USA whom they didn’t even know . You had an Angel on your shoulder that day young man .