3.11 The Disastrous Earthquake And My 3 Children

It has been 10 years. 3.11 has an enormous meaning for me and many Japanese. It was on March 11, 2011, exactly 9 and a half years after the 9.11 terror attacks. That’s when Japan was hit by a large, unprecedented 9.0 Magnitude earthquake and Tsunami. I have never been as terrified as I was that day, and never imagined I would have to evacuate from my home of Fukushima.

Suddenly, the world around me began to fall apart. I felt my body shaking hard, and heard the pig barn shaking and making big rattling sounds. I was working at a large pig farm in Kawamata Town, Fukushima, Japan.  I was in charge of 240 pregnant pigs and 2,000 newborn piglets with 4 of my coworkers.

I screamed “Earthquake!”  and my co-worker Suzuki and I looked at each other in the face. We were feeding and checking on pregnant pigs in the barn. Suzuki was very mean to me when I started working there, we disliked each other, so we didn’t say anything at the moment of the earthquake. The immense shaking continued and didn’t stop at all. The whole barn and the metal feeding pipes were rattling and making cracking sounds, and soon we had a blackout, so I knew it was a huge earthquake. I was afraid that the building would collapsed, so did Suzuki although we didn’t speak, and both of us ran out of the barn as fast as we could. It was 2:46 p.m. on March 11th, 2011, and all the pigs were screaming and squealing like I have never heard before.

Just outside of the barn, there was a 15 feet tall, 4 tons feeding storage tank and it was swinging hard, too. I ran away as fast as I could and sat down on the ground. It was too shaky to stand up still. I recognize myself as a strong, independent person, but at that time, I was just horrified to death. I thought I was dying, and mumbled “I’m scared! Scared!” in my mouth. It felt like the earthquake lasted forever and I thought the whole globe might crack and tear apart. No, actually it didn’t, but the first earthquake lasted for 5 minutes with a break. The pig farm was surrounded by mountains, and I could see rocks and stones were falling from the shaking mountains, and lots of cracks ran all over the place. I was very fortunate to be alive, not injured at all.

I saw a truck traveling at a high rate of speed coming down the slope. This was driven by my other coworker, Masahiro. Normally, he was a happy man, who often joked around, but at the time the look on his face was extremely serious. I thought he was racing to check on the pigs, but later I learned that he dashed back home to check on his wife and children. Knowing that, I felt ashamed of myself for not going home to check on my children immediately after the earthquake. I believe in God and believed that they were safe in school.

It felt like unreal. I was in shock and freaked out. My boss made us check around the farm. In the dark from the blackout, we lit torchlights on, and saw many cracks and broken pipes, but no buildings were collapsed. We couldn’t work in the dark and without electricity, and many smaller earthquakes were still happening, so I decided to go home. When I entered an office, cups and dishes were broken and pieces were all over the floor, and the office ladies were cleaning up. I started to worry about my children, so I didn’t help them and went home. The whole time in the pig farm, it was like I was not myself.

The pig farm was at a top of a mountain, and 15 minutes away from home. The winding road was narrow and there were some cracks here and there, but there was no blockage and I reached the town safely. Seeing the traffic lights off, I knew the whole town had a blackout.

The very lucky thing was, Kawamata is surrounded by mountains and away form the sea shore, so Tsunami didn’t hit us. More than 20,000 people’s lives were taken by the Tsunami, but nobody died at the time of the earthquake in Kawamata.

I was in a hurry to the daycare, but on the way, I saw some people standing in line outside of a convenience store, so I decided to go there first. As a single mom, only I was in charge of getting food for my 3 kids. All rice balls and sandwiches were sold out, so I grabbed instant cup noodles, some salads, delis, and water. There was no panic, and people were polite and making neat two lines silently. Someone was talking that they couldn’t use water and gas in their apartment .

When I finally met my children, I was so relieved. My two sons were scared but excited, and my youngest, my daughter was almost crying. I was the second last parent to pick up children at the daycare, and I regretted again. The last girl picked up by her father right after us kept sobbing.

My two sons, 11 and 10 at the time, told me that they were in their classroom at school when the earthquake happened. They shoved themselves underneath their desk, and eventually teachers led them to the schoolyard. They were shaky but okay, they said.

But my daughter, 8 years old, was walking towards the daycare center with her classmates, terrified with her first and huge earthquake experience, and froze in the middle of the road. Then a flower shop lady came out and patted my daughter’s shoulder, hugged her and her friends, saying in a kind voice “This is awful. You must be terrified, but everything will be okay. It’s all right.” My daughter saw a Ramen restaurant sign fell down and concrete masonry walls collapsed next door of the flower shop. After the shock, she and her friends were able to walk to the daycare again.
If I knew their experiences, I would have rushed from my work. I feel like I always have affection issues because of my parents who abused or ignored me when I was a child.
We headed home, still shaking and in shock.