the last two posts...

were scheduled posts, I forgot to stop them going up, not really appropriate all things considered.

We slept in the living room last night, all of us. I say slept, we were woken a few times by aftershocks of various sizes. Very un-nerving.

When the big quake hit, it was terrifying, Ebi-kun was home so we dropped and moved to the centre of the room, it is open plan so we were away from windows. When it eased we moved outside but soon there was a second, possibly bigger wave, it lasted a long time, the car was shaking like a jelly, we couldn't stand up and crouched hugging the wall. The strange thing going through my mind was 'this is not the epicentre , where is getting the main battering' I was terrified it was Tokyo and the was 'the big one' they talk about. My husband works closer to Tokyo so of course all kinds of things were running through my mind.

Once it had stopped which seemed to be a long time, we went back inside, put the TV on, grabbed my phone and sat in the middle of the room again. I couldn't get through to hubby at all, all the phones were out, NHK are so quick with the quake response, there were initial reports coming in from the north. My heart sank again, I lived in Iwate-ken for two years and have many friends up there, I have no idea how they are doing.

As for damaged here, a few books fell over and that was it, the house is built with earthquake shock absorbers, we stayed inside for subsequent aftershocks and the whole house swayed, it was like being inside a giant jelly.

Hubby got home about 6pm, he hadn't been able to get through to us but had got through to him mom and she called us. He said that his office is pretty much trashed, lots of shelves and cupboards fell and the computers all fell off the desk. He was supposed to work today but the trains are not running so his boss called and told him to stay at home.

There is talk that the nuclear reactor is now unstable, they have evacuated a larger area, as if there isn't enough to worry about. There was reposts that tsunami's were headed to other countries but I haven't heard much on that regard, I hope everyone was able to evacuate in time.