And now what?

After a long time waiting at the entrance of the labs, we went inside the building to disconnect all residual current devices for avoiding problems when they connected the electricity again. After that, we went to the offices (8th floor without elevator, uff...) and whereas my room was some kind of ok apart from some papers on the floor, computers shifted from their original places and a coffee tipped over a desk, the office of Michael was under two centimetres of water. A pipe on the ceiling of the corridor was broken, a lot of water came out flooding the corridor and the adjacent rooms, leaving the institute not only without electricity but also without water. A group of around eight people, we were baling out water of the office while the aftershocks continued without break (not so strong, but constantly). The papers which were at the floor were partially dissolved by the water blocking the drain. When we managed that the room looked more or less normal we left to see in which condition was our home.

I have already written in previous posts that our residence is one of the most modern buildings of Tsukuba and that is very well prepared for earthquakes. Our room was ok, many books fell down from the shells, my earrings were spread out in the living room and some things were out of their original places but it did not look very chaotic. We knew that other neighbours, however, had found their rooms in a mess. In the kitchen, the cupboards usually blocked so that nothing falls down... but there is one under the stove in which one of the shelfs gave way. Several of my new plates had fallen one into another, breaking happily... from the deep plates only one survived and from the bowls two, it could have been worst. Here a photo of the survivors.

We had no light, no water and no gas and it started to get dark. In the room we have an emergency kit with a lamp and a radio which works with batteries (see photo). And me, prudent, I had a big bottle of mineral water saved for such occasions and some food cans.

When we had arrived to the residence we had seen that the rest of the neighbours were in the yard, and there we went. We brought with us a bottle of Spanish cava which otherwise would have become warm without electricity ;-). There we were drinking and chatting with the others, explaining our experiences while the numerous aftershocks were scaring the most sensitive people, and while the radio was announcing tsunami warnings for all around Japan in many different languages. After a couple of hours, we discovered than even thaw we had no electricity other parts of the city had. A group of people, we went to a Chinese restaurant close to the residence where we could fulfil all our needs at a moderate price. There, we met the half of the Tsukuba population: we were all in the same situation. After eating and drinking we went to our regular bar (Hot Staff) and there we crashed with the reality. The TV was on and was showing the first images of the huge waves destroying the coast... suddenly we remembered again the suffering people. At that night, we used extra beers to avoid breaking down right there.