Communication for Development

March 11, 2011

‘Why the hell are you doing it’? I asked Kasumi with closed eyes.
‘Doing what’? She asked.
‘Why are you shaking the bed’? I asked again.
‘I am not doing it’, she told. ‘This is an earthquake…oh my God.’

At once we felt as if we were in a matchbox and some giant is shaking it in his hand. I jumped up and tried to get out of the multi-storey building. I thought that this was perhaps the end of the world. It seemed as if Tokyo itself was on a roller coaster and its skyscrapers swung with frightening speed from right to left. This 9.2 magnitude tremor continued for more than 10 minutes and shook everything that existed on earth. As if a bowl of water was overturned onto a table sheet, the seawater, in waves as high as 30 meters, erupted and engulfed the entire Tohoku region.

In a matter of minutes, people started coming with food, water and warm clothes to places where help was required. Soon we were told that a tsunami warning had been issued we were rushed to a big specially built building. We were told that it was the safest building in Tokyo and if something happened to that building, it meant that Tokyo no longer existed.

This was the time when the nuclear reactors were damaged and the fear of death spread like a speedy wind in all Japan. In one of those days I stood at the main road leading towards Tokyo City and could not see a single person on the way. This was Tokyo, the biggest congested metropolitan in the world. Almost all foreigners had left the city. I was sad. Disaster had taken away peace and harmony in an instant.

During the voluntary activities in the tsunami affected areas, I found hundreds of lovely pictures of smiling babies and honeymooning couples littered in the mud. I cleaned them with quivering hands, washed them with tears in my eyes and placed them on broken shelves for somebody to recognize their belongings. Then I also held a shovel, carried stones and bricks and laid the foundations of new houses with new hopes.