After the Earthquake – Part 7
This is an archive post from my old blog. I’ve put this series here for others that may still be interested and so that I don’t forget…
Thursday 17th March – Day six – continued
As I sit here typing I’m wearing 2 fleeces, a hooded top, and two pairs of tracksuit bottoms – When I move around I resemble a zombie (not so easy to bend with all the clothes) and I look like a cross between the Michelin man and sumo wrestler. I haven’t shaved for a week and feel like a bear, I’m now thinking of auditioning for a horror movie franchise. This is all an attempt to keep warm because we are keeping the heater off to save electricity.
I have just begun to realise how much we rely on electricity. In the 70’s in England there were power cuts and only the electricity went off, but now everything is connected to electronic controls so when the electricity goes off so does the phone, the water, and even the gas in some places.
It’s been a week since the earthquake, and the aftershocks are still continuing. We’ve had two tonight already, it’s very difficult to relax sometimes, but I’m finding red wine helps, as well as helping to keep you warm! I suppose every cloud has a silver lining.
We went to a supermarket today and there is still plenty of food in Tokyo despite all the reports of panic buying. Some shelves still empty though, including toilet roll. I’ve come to the conclusion that toilet roll is a weird measure of the national psyche here, when it comes back it will mean that people feel that the nuclear reactor threat is over. Until then the unlucky ones will have to keep their buttocks clenched or at least hope there are spare copies of the Asahi shimbun (newspaper) lying around. If the reactor situation continues indefinitely then radiation may not be the only smell sensation lingering in the air (yes I know radiation doesn’t smell, but you get my drift…as it were).
There is still a lot of confusion due to conflicting information. Most of this is caused by news media from different countries all saying different things. Most of the Japanese have no inkling about what the foreign media is saying and are just listening to Japanese media and the Government information (or sometimes lack of). As a result most of foreigners are leaving Tokyo and in some cases Japan in hoards while for many Japanese it is literally business as usual. The power cuts and aftershocks are causing more inconvenience to them than the threat from the reactors. I really don’t know who to believe any more, I’m feeling media overload. It seems others may be too, as I heard a report that soap operas came back to some Japanese channels today, replacing disaster TV images.
Personally I want to remember these feelings of uncertainty for the rest of my life. That might sound weird, considering the words I write day by day in this blog but it is situations like this that break us out of the complacency that we normally get into. This past week the feelings of insecurity, fear, uncertainty, sadness, and helplessness have helped me to understand how many people in war zones, disaster zones (don’t be fooled that Tokyo is a disaster zone – it isn’t) and refugee zones feel. When this is over I want to be much more proactive at doing what I can to help others. Hopefully my photography and writing can contribute to something much better. I never want to get complacent again.
Goodnight for another night from Tokyo.
