I receive e-mails from colleagues and friends that can’t go home, others say that they have been walking for seven hours, almost 30km. Hotels in downtown Tokyo are full. News from the situation in the north continue to arrive and the number of victims starts to grow.
I have to sleep next to a backpack with food, water and a flashlight. But sleeping is not easy, most of us can’t sleep because of the multiple aftershocks that happen throughout the night. Unable to sleep well, on Saturday at 5:00am I am already getting the latest news: thousands of refugees and problems with the nuclear power plant at Fukushima.
Around 9:00am I go out to the streets to see how the atmosphere is. There are much less people than usual in the streets and the shelves in the supermarkets are empty. Everything else seems normal and quiet in Tokyo, however we still feel some aftershocks every two or three hours.
We are all sad and worried about the situation, but we need to disconnect, at mid afternoon we manage to gather a group of some friends (the ones that can move by bicycle or scooter) to celebrate the birthdays of Carlos and I. We don’t have anything to celebrate, but we need to get together and calm down; we have a lot to talk about, we all share our feelings and comment how we are living the situation.
Nothing better than to be with friends in a situation like this. Thanks, you are the best! We will all celebrate in some weeks as it should have been.
Our cakes, 24 hours after the earthquake; also they were affected by the shaking of the earthquake:
Very tired because of the lack of sleep and worried about the news that are arriving from the north, we all go back home soon to try to get some rest.
More posts about the March 2011 Earthquake: