Ready for anything; survival in Matsumoto

Earthquakes in Japanese Religion (Photo credit: timtak)

I think the most common emergency situation in my country is earthquakes. If there is an earthquake, I will go under neath the table and wait for earthquake to stop. Then I will go outside. 


Actually, we had an earthquake yesterday, but I didn't notice.


Takuro

Disasters in Japan

Image via Wikipedia

 Japan has many volcanoes, for example Mount Fuji and Mount Asahi.

Japan has many earthquakes too.

There was a huge earthquake at Tohoku on March 11, under the sea at 2:45 pm. People were at work and schools. After the earthquake a tsunami was produced and it was 10m high. The wave traveled very quickly and it hit the coast.

The tsunami broke a lot of buildings. About 27,000 people were killed, and many more people were injured. The people who were safe ran to the schools. About 500,000 people were made homeless.

Image via WikipediaThere is a fuel and food problem because everything is broken. There is also a bigger problem at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power station which had some explosions. For me it is very scary.

My dad went to Tohoku and he gave medicine to the survivors.

by Tomoro (11)

Getting me through

I feel very guilty about talking up any stress or worries I am personally feeling over the last week.

We have had aftershocks and wobbles, but on the greater scale of things we have had precious little to cry about. It has been weird, living a country experiencing unprecedented trauma. As if the double-whammy would not have been hard enough to tackle, the relief effort has been castrated not just by the scale of the devastation, but by the terrifying prospects of just what could (still) go wrong at the nuclear plant(s) on the Fukushima coast.

I have been awed by the calm, rational reaction of our students and parents. I have not been so impressed with the sensational, irrational and outright inflammatory descriptions of events unfolding in Japan in some quarters of the media. I have stopped watching CNN. Some of the BBC's correspondents have also angered me. However, the scientific experts the BBC featured, especially mid-week, were extremely reassuring in their analysis and presentation of the facts. How has the Japanese media functioned? Pass. (Slowly? Spoonfed? Soporific?)

A week down the road since our own building wriggled, I was not looking forward to teaching my little tiddlers class. Don't get me wrong - lovely kids, and really warm mums. No, we would be in the same room, same kind of windy day...

The children jumped up the stairs to class and were giggling about their new word ("ji-shin" - earthquake) as they remembered where they were. They are five. They gabbled away in Japanese, not anxiously, just having a giggle. They talked about me holding their hands and how they had hidden under the table last time. I did not want to have any other reminders; my classroom has spooked me all week - rattly windows, doors banging,  pole outside swaying in the wind (is it the wind?). So, at a good volume we watched and sang along to a nice DVD, the Three Billy Goats from OUP. I had just about settled myself when my phone bleeped an earthquake warning. I leapt out of my skin. A quick check told me it was a M4.8 off the coast towards Hokkaido. But the timing was awful. I looked again at the happy faces engrossed in the DVD and thanked the stars they were all totally unharmed. The school is standing. My family are OK. We have food, we have warmth, we even have toilet paper. The sheer relief of a whole week and not being dead, I could not stop having a quick cry. Good job the DVD was on : )

(Because we were singing and dancing, we did not feel the two tremors during our lesson - so my planned worked doubly. We did spook mums downstairs though, with all the banging. Sorry about that)

Thank you girls. As long as I teach you though, I am going to be looking at you with an extra glint. You are too young to know, or care. You are going to be a weekly reminder, Friday afternoon, that I am very lucky indeed.

Let's do our bit, Luna family

I had an argument with my wife this afternoon & the "Well, what are you doing?" comment she dropped on me cut a raw nerve. All I am doing is gawping at the TV and trying to keep my eye on a couple of websites (IEAE, USGS, BBC World) and key words on twitter.

I've got a spare room in my house. Pack away the Hina Dolls. Move a few bags. For a family on the run in need of shelter, I think that would be enough for a while. Access to a hot bath, running water, kitchen & hot food, heating and a dry bed. Anybody else manage a spare room?

Shinshu JALT President Mark Brierley agreed with me that at the very least, this would be an offer we could make on behalf of our local teachers' organisation, confident that our membership will back us up. We have no idea what the response will be. We have made an open invitation that through Shinshu JALT we will provide accommodation to families in need of refuge. We may need to back up that offer.

Luna's family: if you are willing to take in a family, contact Jim or Yukari directly please. Who knows, you might get a lot of free English lessons.

Let's do our bit

Shaking, rattling, and rolling

If you live in Japan then this post will be boring! Skip this & do your homework!

In the last 24 hours we've been witness to Mother Nature's more belligerent personality. The last decent typhoon I remember in July washed out the first Fuji Rock Festival. To this date, I have still only ever seen the Red Hot Chilli Peppers perform one song live. At least the Foo Fighters were on before them :)

Anyway, it's been cats & dogs all weekend. We rarely feel the full brunt of any typhoons here in central Japan, but we certainly get the rain. Our local tax-wasting river-groomers moved out just in time - Friday afternoon I saw a couple of guys raking - yes, raking - the river bed. After 36 hours of constant rain, we can safely assume their endeavours were in vain.

So just to add flavour the long weekend ("Ocean Day" being a National Holiday on July 16th in Japan), a couple of earthquakes. Of course, if you live in Japan, you have to accept the wobbly ground with the raw fish, right? Fair point. Still, a tad worrying when you live in a knackered old building and your pregnant wife is downstairs. And a looong earthquake that was too - building was still swaying after I figured out it wasn't the washing machine.

Five hours later my staff were looking at me funny when I dodged under a door frame as a very strong aftershock rippled through the school. I'm not sure who looked sillier; me in the doorway or them not under their desks. Until Yuki trundled along the corridor, also heavily pregnant, asking if we were all OK?! Bless her.

So just another, other day in Japan really?!