Still don't have any power or cell phone service. Thank God that Bob's house has news...but no heat, I'm freezing! We're too worried to start the wood stove in case there is another earthquake. Last night was rough. I was woken up at least three times just by giant earthquakes, not including the warning bulletins from the town at all hours of the night. Feeling sick - awesome. Wondering about my house, or at least the food in my fridge. I need to find out if my landline works and how to make international calls. Going to get out of bed and check the news. Yesterday there were 200-300 bodies found in Sendai and 28 middle schoolers missing. I hope it's better today...
Been sitting on the couch, glued to my laptop and the TV. I'm so exhausted from hearing bad news and staying up all night from the earthquakes and alarms. The death toll keeps rising. Currently there are about 1400 people missing or dead. Sendai is still underwater. 50 kids are stranded on a boat in the ocean and both nuclear power plants (Tomioka and Okuma) are beginning to fail. Tomioka has already been evacuated, in Okuma it is recommended. People in northern Hirono should stay inside their houses or leave.
Bob, Fujie, and I took a ride around town to see the damage. You can't see too much up by my house. Just cracked streets, buildings, and no power still. But when you get downtown you start to notice the fallen roofs, extra debris, and when you get to the river you can see how high it rose, and what it took out with it. Bob guesstimated that the tsunami took out about 20 houses. The land is just a muddy flat field of wreckage. You can see the roofs (sp? I'm so tired I can't spell. Jane says that it's my adrenaline levels finally dropping after keeping me awake in "fight or flight" mode. I could pass out anywhere) floating in the rice paddies with nothing left for walls. The trip from Tokyo to Sendai is taking over 15 hours by car instead of less than 5 like normal. The water maybe isn't supposed to come back for two weeks and the aftershocks are still happening. They've definitely diminished though - however, the news said it's possible for us to have another big earthquake within in the week.
Now we have to worry about the power plants failing. We have emergency packs ready if we need to leave but I have no idea where we'd go, Iwaki? The facility in Tomioka is supposedly 1000% over capacity and is beginning to leak. But all of my information is second-hand because I can't understand the news. That's probably the most frustrating part. Just waiting...
The death count in Iwaki was 23 this morning, now it's 41. There is a panic for food and water. Lines are down the street for convenience stores or sold out. Gas prices have skyrocketed and there's a shortage on gas and water. We have about 4 large bottles of drinking water now. Nuclear reactor building just exploded in Okuma. It's 5:45pm but it happened a little earlier. We don't know what's going to happen because of this but it seems increasingly likely that we will be evacuating to Iwaki
8:04pm in Iwaki at Bob's oldest son's apartment with his wife. Just finished dinner (Rice again. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and now sitting under the kotatsu watching the news. The Iwaki JETs are safe and know I'm here. We have no internet again but Bob has a long distance number that I can use to call my parents in the morning or even later tonight if I can stay awake. Bob keeps telling me it's horrible but everything that has happened is quite an experience! Haha, no kidding. I just got told I have to go to the bathroom in an unlit park or a bag, ewwww...quite an experience. I think I've had all the experience I need. I've lived through an 8.8 earthquake, 33 ft tsunami, and now nuclear power leakage! I really don't need anymore experience for today thank you. However I did get educated on tsunamis vs. waves. A wave's crest is the highest point, a wave flows in and out. Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes and the level of the ocean raises and doesn't go out.
