The Peru Gazette

Peru resident and SUNY Plattsburgh Assistant Professor Dr. Lauren Eastwood is in Tokyo and experienced yesterday’s earthquake.  She described her impressions and forwarded a few photos. The Gazette thanks Neil Hamilton for providing this information to us.

I happened to be at the Imperial Palace, which is very close to the center of Tokyo.  Fortunately, I was out in the open, but witnessed the 30+ story office buildings swaying back and forth.  When the first tremor hit, it was quite slight.  Then things got more dramatic.  There was a general rumbling noise, and the sound of things moving–some people sat down to prevent themselves from falling.  There were giant cranes on the top of some buildings that are under construction–the cranes were swaying back and forth and I was worried they would fall.

I’m amazed at the level of preparation here, though.  People were evacuated from their office buildings very quickly, and most people had hard hats and small backpack disaster kits.  They are prepared for earthquakes here the way we’re prepared for snowstorms!

All of the public transportation was shut down, and so everyone was walking home.  Tokyo is usually quite crowded, but this was like nothing I had ever seen before.  There were endless crowds of people trying to get home without public transportation.  All of the bicycle stores sold out their stocks within hours.  I walked for 7 hours to get back to Kichijoji, the suburb of Tokyo where I’m staying with family friends.

Along the way, people were clustered around stores that had televisions reporting the news.  There were some public telephones that appeared to be functioning, and there were long lines of people waiting to try to call home and check on relatives and friends.  Most of the phones were not working–and most of the cell phone services were down as well.

When I got back to where I’m staying, I was amazed to see the tsunami damage being reported on the news.  The scale of the devastation was not apparent to me until I saw the television reports.  There is very little structural damage here where I am located, thanks to the building codes and the necessity to plan for earthquakes during the construction process.  However, many glasses broke and things fell off of shelves–it is truly amazing and frightening to feel as though the ground is completely undulating underneath you to the extent that it is difficult to stand.  It was like being on a ship in rough waters–buildings and trees were swaying as well.

Overall, it was a frightening experience, but I was very impressed with how well prepared the Japanese are for this sort of disaster.  It is clear that the magnitude of the quake was extreme, and there was significant damage that is still unfolding.  However, there would have been much more devastation if people hadn’t been so well prepared.

I hope this gives some sense of what is going on here!  I have attached some images of people outside the office buildings in their hard hats, and also one of a car that was crushed by a piece of a building.

Best,

Lauren Eastwood