The earthquake

I have wanted to write about our earthquake experience, though we were so safe up here in Hokkaido. I will try to write briefly. This is just to record what it was like for us up here in Hokkaido, far from the disaster. I will write in bullet form to try and stay brief!

• I was at work, sitting at my desk in the teacher's room of a school in Sapporo. Many kids were in their classrooms getting ready to go, or out in the hallways cleaning. The earthquake started at 2:46 p.m., but for us in Hokkaido it would have been slightly later.
• The shaking was very large and side-to-side, clearly a very powerful earthquake, and it went on for approx. 5 minutes. It seemed to just go on and on. I was on the 2nd floor of the 3-story school building. I was not afraid for my health as such, since the shaking was not violent - but it was clearly a "big event" and there was a lot of worry, consternation, shouting, etc.
• Kids in their classrooms went under their desks, but those in the hallways could be heard reacting, and someone was shouting down the hallway for them not to move.
• One cute 8th grade boy was at the door of the teacher's room, and I was shouting to him to get back away from the doorway, since there are large plate-glass windows right above the doorway.
• Almost before the shaking had stopped, someone had turned on the TV and we saw it was in Miyagi. I was so worried as that is very far away, and as I mentioned, it was clearly a very powerful earthquake, even as we felt it in Hokkaido. I said to another teacher, "Oh no, that came all the way from Miyagi??? It will have been very bad there...".
• Right away I sent the following message to my parents by email, from my iPhone (I had been just about to answer their previous email, anyway) : "Hi, the pics came through great! Don't worry about us from the earthquake just now. Sapporo is fine, though it was very long and enough to scare us all at the school. My heart is still beating fast and it seems the news from Miyagi will be bad... But don't worry, we are fine!" (This was before the tsunami had even started, and I was just aiming to reassure them as I knew the earthquake was big enough to make the news in the U.S., and these things are usually reported as "Northern Japan", which might make them worry).
• My dad told me later that it was an hour or so after receiving this email that they first saw news about the earthquake and tsunami on TV. I know from other relatives that coverage lasted into the night there, in the U.S.
• After sending that email, I immediately posted on my facebook status (about 3 p.m.), mainly to get the message to my husband's family in England: "Very big earthquake in another part of Japan (Miyagi again) but we are fine in Sapporo. Very worried about Miyagi, and a tsunami is expected there...". We still had no idea of just how big it would be, but I knew it would make the news overseas in any case.
• At this point the general expectation was that a "bad tsunami" might be, for example, as bad as the 1993 Okushiri tsunami, which badly damaged an island and killed 239 people.
• In the teacher's room, we began crowding around the TV as the first videos of the tsunami were broadcast. Again, absolutely NO expectation that hundreds of miles of coast would be similarly affected. The video was shocking and scary, nonetheless.
• Students were milling around worriedly, and they began hearing about the tsunami. A student told me that her family lives in a town on the Pacific coast of Hokkaido. She was worried about them. I finally told her not to worry if she couldn't get through to them by phone right away. This turned out to be good advice, as she was not able to talk to them until the next morning.
• There was a large aftershock. The students were very concerned, again. I was in the hallway this time and held hands with a girl who had started crying. We heard that this aftershock was centered in Aomori (about half-way between Miyagi and us). I heard students worrying that we would be next. The students began to go home.
• I came out of my daze and wondered how my own children were doing. I got a text message from my older son (age 16) saying he was fine. The students at his school had taken refuge in the hallway. I tried to call my younger son (then age 11) but couldn't get through. I began worrying that he might be really scared, as he might be home alone and had been pretty scared in the past by a smaller earthquake, when he was home alone. I began wandering about the school distractedly, holding my phone. A teacher asked me if I was okay.
• I kept checking my iPhone Japanese earthquake news app, and at first it had told me that the main earthquake was a 7 on the Japanese Shindo scale, but around the time I was trying to contact my younger son, I looked at the app again, and it had apparently broken down. It told me "there have been no earthquakes today". That was pretty scary in itself, and really unsettling for me.
• I got a call from my younger son, who had cleverly thought to call me!! He asked me, "Did you notice the giant earthquake?" He had been still in his classroom after school (Japanese school, 5th grade) with about 6-7 other stragglers (and no teacher), when the first earthquake hit. He felt it first and said, "Earthquake! Get under your desks!". Then the "smart boy" in class said, "No! You're more likely to die if you get under your desks!" (???) He was known to be smart, so a few got under their desks and a few didn't. The teacher came up to the classroom and when it was over, told them to go home. My son went home and had another friend with him. The big aftershock hit, and they hid under our big dining table, playing their DS's.  They pulled our dog Toby under the table, too.  I'm glad he had a friend with him, as he was less scared. He was also able to handle a call from my husband's sister in England, who had seen the news. Though he hadn't had contact with us yet, he told her Sapporo was fine and not to worry. Good boy!
• I was also wondering about my older son's plans for the afternoon -- to go straight downtown after school for a voice-recording thing that had been arranged by an acquaintance who was making a CD for her English school. I had trouble thinking straight, but finally decided that, if the subways were running, he could go as normal.
• I left school and got on the bus and then the subway. It was running normally. I was still kind of in a daze, and people seemed strangely quiet. I went downtown, checked in on my older son at the recording studio for about 10 minutes, then got back on the subway and went straight home.
• I was also wondering about plans for that night. The 5th grade moms and teacher (from my younger son's Japanese elem. school) were scheduled to have their big end-of-school-year dinner with drinks. We had all paid our 3,500 yen each (about 40 dollars) in advance.
• I stopped by the supermarket, and it seemed normal-ish. Things felt very weird and kind of quiet, though. I was relieved that there was no panic at the supermarket.
• I decided to go ahead and go to the party, and as it turned out everyone else went, too. We still had no idea just how bad the disaster was. Japan is a country of earthquakes and for the most part, things have to go on as normal. No-one expected or knew yet that this would turn out to have been a "once in 1000 years" earthquake.  No-one knew the full extent of the tsunami, or anything about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, either. 
• Once home from the party (after 9 p.m.), I was glued to the news for several hours. We all watched, with horror. I posted this on facebook, around 11 p.m.: "Emotions all over the place today... I was laughing and crying with 9th gr girls at lunchtime (they will graduate next Tues). Later we were all scared during the earthquake. I was busy all evening (Sapporo was okay so most things are continuing as planned). Now all at home watching the news... :( "
• I went to bed sometime about 1 a.m., I guess. As dark had fallen just a few hours after the earthquake, there was only so much they could say about the situation, and they were mainly repeating what had become known by nightfall. We would have to wait for morning to find out more. We still had no idea just how bad it was, but it was bad and shocking enough already.
• More later...