My very personal earthquake weekend II: After the quake

Right after the quake

As mentioned above (or rather below (referring to the last post)), people reacted very differently to the earthquake. 

Of course, there were the ones who would express that they were actually scared...

...but most would just stand there and wait, not knowing what to do...

...or try and contact their loved ones (this woman was lucky to have a home phone handy)...

I'll go on and broach the issue of people's reactions, but in order to not leave things unfinished, at this point, I pick up things from where I left them in the last post:

My very personal earthquake afternoon

Because of the doubts I was having about what you're actually supposed to do in case of an earthquake, I ask this question to the guy from the gallery (the one who told me that this had also been his first big earthquake) and he tells me that you were supposed to go to a park just down the street. 

The quake was over, but being new to all this, I'm not sure whether life would simply go on and I should go back to the gallery and look at orgasm faces. Knowing that there is a big chance of after shocks, I decide to check out the evacuation area. I find it quickly...

... but apparently, not a lot of people went there during the earthquake. At first glance, it actually seems to be deserted...

... then I see a few people. Mostly families with children who were probably already there when the earthquake started.

I guess the park wouldn't have looked a lot different on any friday afternoon, except usually people wouldn't forget to look after their children over checking their cell phones. At least I hope so...

At last, after having walked around the block, I decide to go back to the gallery, as things seem to get back to normal. 

After shock

Mother earth only let me enjoy the pictures for a few minutes and the house started to move again. This time, people react more consciously and a lot of them actually go to the 'temporary gathering place'. At least, when I get back there, the park is actually crowded.

There are announcements informing us over loud speakers that there had been 'an upper scale earthquake' (oh, really??) and that we should stay in the gathering place until further notice. 

Here we are, our phones not working, not knowing whether the buildings in other parts of Tokyo are still standing (like around us), not knowing how strong this quake actually was, where the epicenter was, whether there are more quakes to come, how friends and family were. Not knowing how long we're supposed to stay there.

So, here I really start to study people's reactions. And there is this weird contrast between the worrying and the acting as if nothing serious would have happened. Between the desperately trying to call somebody and the joking around. A contrast, by the way, I would find more times later on in the city.

And there's me, the only Gaijin around, taking pictures as though this was just another tourist attraction.

A woman comes up to me and asks me whether I want to join her group. I recognize some persons I had seen in the gallery earlier and as she introduces them to me, I learn that they all either run galleries or are artists working in the area.
These are the three young women i now call my earthquake friends:

I am happy to be with them, especially because the further announcements are made only in Japanese.
I begin to think of what time it is in Germany right now and whether news have already gotten there. It's in the morning, but my mother is probably up already. Knowing her and her mother instincts and not knowing what the news would be like, I try to think of a way to let her know I'm okay. Finally I send a message to my boyfriend's email adress telling him he should call my mum (instead of using short message services, it's common in Japan to send MMS to email adresses that are connected to your phone, but you can also send messages from a phone to normal email accounts). I also try to call my friend Julia and surprisingly it works. It seems like, this time, it pays off to have a strange phone company that people wouldn't know and hardly anybody would use... Julia is at her dorm and okay and she tells me that she couldn't make out major damages in the area where she lives (and where my guesthouse is, too). It's also her who first tells me that, up north, the earthquake had actually reached an 8 on the Richter scale and that there had been a Tsunami as well. But even knowing these bits of information it is impossible to make out the actual degree of devastation that had taken place.

When it's starting to rain, my earthquake friends decide to go inside and have some coffee. Despite of the  incertitude of whether it's safe to go back inside I join them because I don't want to get wet either. But instead of coffee, i'll have a beer...

to be continued...