I’m finally back on the internet again after almost a week. Things are starting to get semi-normal. We have power, internet, and telephone (land line and cell). We still don’t have water yet (so I’m probably pretty stinky now), and most of the stores are still closed, so getting food can be a bit difficult sometimes. We still have enough to eat though. We also can’t get any gasoline, and the trains are not even close to running any time soon. It’s not so bad though, considering how some people are having a much worse time right now.
Anyways here’s some photos of the damage around my neighborhood. It’s nowhere near as bad as some of the stuff you’ve probably seen on TV. In fact it’s kind of trivial compared to the tsunami damage.The first three are at our house. The earthquake almost toppled the wall behind our house.
It’s actually very lucky that it fell away from the house. Below is a stone ornament thing in our garden. The earthquake just shattered it to pieces.
During the earthquake I was standing near it, and didn’t even notice it falling down (or the wall for that matter). Everything was shaking so much and for so long, I thought it was never going to end. I could barely even stand up. I had to hold onto a post, but I still had problems keeping my feet on the ground. It was easily the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced.
Below is several photos of my immediate neighborhood.
Most of the worst damage was to older buildings. Below a temple gate fell right over.
Some of the streets just cracked right open. When I was driving the other day I saw a crack in the road almost half a foot wide. Also I saw a section where the road sank over a foot! These are smaller ones just down the street from my house.
Since the earthquake we’ve experienced almost constant aftershocks. Some quite substantial too. In fact some of the aftershocks have been stronger than earthquakes we’ve had before. Thankfully it’s starting to settle down to one or two every couple of hours. So that’s the current up date as it stands so far.
Oh by the way I forgot to mention that the inside of our house was completely trashed. Stuff was everywhere, and a lot of it was broken. One thing that surprised me was one of our heavy shelves actually had moved a foot and a half sideways! Also our fridge toppled over and hit a shelf . I found it sitting diagonal with the doors wide open and the food all over the ground.
In Sendai 