Email exchanges with Cindy "missing" on 3.11

[backdated post written in April 2012 out of my digital logs]


Here's part of communications with Cindy who was supposed to be at my place in Monzen-Nakacho, Tokyo before dark.  First, I sent a message to two of her email accounts, and Cindy responded from Nagoya instead of Tokyo Narita Airport.  We haven't decided yet when to head for Kobe as Cindy was going to meet my parents this time.


11-03-2011 17:07
Cindy,
In case you can't reach me by phone but your mail accounts, I'm sending this now.  

The earthquake created a really big mess in my flat.  Especially for safety reasons, I cannot let you stay here. 

Hotels should be better with tighter security obligations.  I want you nearby, but hotels near Narita could be safer since they are further than the coastal areas.

Hope we can get together anyway :).

Take care.
chiho

11-03-2011 18:25
Hi Chiho,

Im so glad to hear from　you and that you are ok. I actually stuck at
Nagoya airport still in the plane and this japanese lady has kindly
lent me her note book to type this email.

I think I will stay here and make my way to Osaka Kyoto if we can meet
there as I hear Tokyo is totally chaotic and Narita is closed for
several days.

Would you come?

Will call you ass soon as I get a phone as I realised my cell phone doesnt work.

chat with you soon.
Hope you are safe, heard a second earthquake hit at 6.

talk to you soon,
c


11-03-2011 19:12
Hi Cindy,

Good you are okay.  (Sorry, it took me too long to notice.)

My place is like this [link to TwitPic of the day] .

Hope you are in the new airport called Centria or something which is itself sort of a popular town if not a resort :).

I have to tidy up my room tomorrow.  O, btw, call me at 050-XXXX-XXXX.
Since my land phone is not NTT's there has been no problem in connection with my family
while most others cannot call e.o.  

I can then call you back from either the IP phone or Skype (cheaper than your calling from hotel's or public phone).

My family think we are arriving in Kobe early next week. I was thinking of Monday...

Anyway, let's talk on the phone.  Give me your hotel name.

JR stopped operation in Kanto area today, and we are not sure how things will go.  

Office workers are told not to try to go home, but keep warm in a safe place like remaining in the office. (It's pretty cold here.)

Talk to you soon.
chiho




Cindy couldn't contact me till next morning.  I stayed awake watching TV and playing with Twitter in the flat that kept shaking.  Anything hung on the wall or from the ceiling kept trembling.  Since I kept water in the bathtub for toilet, etc. just in case of water outage, the surface kept moging even when I don't feel it much myself.


   

Cindy could not arrive in Narita due to earthquake

[backdated post written in April 2012 out of my digital logs]


I was vacuuming the floor under my pc desk when the earthquake hit Japan at about a quarter to 3pm on 11 March 2011.  My friend Cindy from Singapore was supposed to arrive in Narita at 3:25pm.  My tiny flat was still full of mess, and I was hurrying up to make it clean enough to have Cindy sleep in my bed.

Then the horrifying shaking reached my place.  My flat is on the 8th floor (7th if by the UK standard) out of 9 floors, which meant the structure was weak in the SRC building as the loosened regulation.  (During the 1.17 Kobe Earthquake, 7th-floor spaces were crashed without enduring the weight of the upper floors).


I had no idea what to protect first or where was the safest in the room, but decided to hold two tall steel bookshelves backing each other in front of and behind thin-glass sliding doors with wooden grids so that they could work as pillars if anything would fall from the upper floor.   (Normally the warning goes like "Keep from any heavy furniture and stay under a table to protect yourself", but I noticed in most of the small flats mainly for "bachelors", most furniture is not heavy enough to kill us, and tables are often too low or small to hide beneath them.)

The shaking was so intense and lasted long as I have never experienced even at the time of 1.17 Kobe Earthquake in 1995.  While the bookshelves kept moving making a V-shape from where I gripped, most books and things fell on the floor including my phone-fax machine.  The thin flat TV near the window also fell, and the printer on the top shelf of the pc desk fell on the bed.  


The kitchen and the bathroom were also in a complete mess.  The microwave fell on my dear antique English table then onto the floor.  The fridge was walking off the wall.  I had no idea of the magnitude of the earthquake, but briefly thought my life might end today.  My flat was exceptionally weak against east-west trembling unlike most other buildings.


After the quake calmed down in five minutes or so, I checked the land phone and TV to learn they were okay except that the tuner of the WiFi TV was broken, and I lost access to BBC and CNN.  I didn't know what this loss of the access to overseas media would mean yet.


I phoned my parents and told my father what was going on.  My landphone, btw, was not NTT, but FTTH IP Phone, starting with the 050 number instead of Tokyo's 03.  When many people couldn't use the phone (most by mobile), I had no problem.


Anyway, I thought Cindy's arrival was going to be very late if the flight will still land in Narita.  Cindy on the other hand was initially taken away to Nagoya Airport, and sent me a brief message at 18:25 borrowing some other passenger's notebook pc, saying she will keep me posted, but I haven't heard from her again this day.


Though I knew Tsunami hit the Tohoku region, because the information was limited, I stuck to Twitter, trying to help people in the central Tokyo who lost all the public transport and had to either stay or walk back home throughout the night.


Though the gas stopped temporarily (and the bulb couldn't be opened as I didn't remember the procedure whereas Tokyo Gas was closed for the weekend), I was lucky enough not to lose any other utility; electricity, water, the Internet access.


On Twitter, I was mainly distributing information to the commuters in the central Tokyo who had to walk home because almost all the public transportation was suspended due to the earthquake.


I still didn't know the whole picture of the 311 disaster yet, and had no idea how Fukushima Daiichi was going to affect my life.


The Japanese Twitter log is here.
http://q66p.blogspot.jp/2011/03/2011-03-11.html