Earthquake March 11th

As you all know by now, there has been a massive earthquake in Japan on the 11th, Friday.

Magnitude 8.8. The biggest in recorded history in Japan. Even bigger than the one that hit Kobe about 10years ago when Kati was on her mission here. I'm sure everyone still remembers that disaster.

Well, this time it happened in Sendai. This is in the northern part of the Main Island of Japan. The shake was really big, and to make it worse, gigantic tsunami hit everywhere, and fires are breaking out. Lucky for us (although it does not feel right to use the term lucky taken the fact that so many people have been victims of this disaster), tokyo did not get as much damage as other parts of the country did.

During the first quake that happened at 14:46, my mother was in the office, dad was in India on a business trip (still is )Keita was at a construction site working, and I was in my customer's warehouse delivering bags that came in from India. I saw the huge sliding doors shake and at first it seemed like the wind was blowing really hard and that was causing the doors to move. a few seconds later, the ground started to shake. I held on to the cardboard boxes that were near me. Obviously that was not enough to keep me up right. I struggled to stay up. This was the longest movement I had experienced ever. It felt like more than 15minutes. Not sure of the specifics. I could see the boards outside of restaurants swaying big. After the first one, we paused for a few minutes, and the second one came. So me and my co-worker just got out of there as soon as we could and started heading back to the office in our van.

Phone lines were jammed, and cell phones did not work at all. So we managed to find a pay-phone and called in to the office. everyone was fine they said, so we told them we were starting to make our way home, but the streets were all crazy crowded because of the highways were off limits. We made it out to the warehouse in an hour. the way back took almost 3 hours. We were soo glad when we finally saw familiar buildings in our neighborhood.

The trains had stopped and people were getting nowhere, so on the news they showed a lot of people walking home for hours from their work places. The streets outside out house were packed with cars the whole time.

The numbers of casualties are rising rapidly as we speak. Last time I checked there were over 1,000 diceased. My hearts go out to those who are in trouble right now.

I have been able to contact some of my ward members, collage friends, highschool friends, and family. They seem to be doing just fine (including the Tokyo stake missionaries). 

Although the phone lines were useless, me and my friends found internet really useful at this time of cricis. We were able to communicate through skype and facebook. Thank you everyone for your love and concerns. I have received calls from India, messages from Thai, China, and of course America

Although it has been almost 35hours since the initial attack, we are still experiencing after quakes quite regularly. But I think the worst has passed. I hope.

I will make it a point to inform you if anything further comes up.

Much love,

yuri