My sister lives (I hope) in Sendai - 1st city hit by tsunami

[Landy110]

My sister and her two beautiful girls live in Sendai, the closest city to the epicentre of the earthquake. We haven't heard a word from her. I have registered her with D.F.A.T. and fingers crossed but a friend of hers in another part of Japan doesn't think it looks good. She may have been in the way of the tsunami.

Steve

[999]

Sit tight mate. She'll be right.

[MickS]

Mate, power etc etc would be knocked out...just hang tight...nothing from DFAT at all?

[kenleyfred]

A frightening time for you Steve. I pray it works out okay for your sister.
Listening to some of the reports this evening it does sound like their warning systems are very good and that the population takes them seriously. With luck her and a lot of others have managed to get out of harms way.

What is this world coming to?

[85 county]

Mate

No news is good news, all the phone lines will be out so it will take a few days untill solid info becomes avalable.

[land864]

Steve

Our thoughts and hopes are with you and your family.

Kenleyfred. Maybe the Mayans were onto something? Perhaps not a total meltdown but we have had a lot of unusual meteorological and geophysical activity lately?

[Landy110]

They are all fine !
No power or water and some damage but the house is ok too.

Thanks guys

[abaddonxi]

Good to hear.

[kenleyfred]

Very good to hear.

[CraigE]

Steve, Glad they are all OK. Looked terrifying and has done some damage, but on the plus side Japan are ready more than most for this type of thing. My daughter is thinking about going over there on student exchange, has me a bit concerned now.

[solmanic]

Steve, Glad they are all OK. Looked terrifying and has done some damage, but on the plus side Japan are ready more than most for this type of thing. My daughter is thinking about going over there on student exchange, has me a bit concerned now.

Except didn't they send 300 odd of their crack earthquake guys to Christchurch? I hope they're back home now for this.

[keith73]

Glad to hear everything is ok steve.:):)

[JDNSW]

......but on the plus side Japan are ready more than most for this type of thing. .........

Glad to hear they are OK - and it is worth remembering that tsunamai is a Japanese word; there is a good reason for this!

John

[Landy110]

Thanks for the support guys, the last time I had to sit and wait for news was when my daughter had her accident in 2005, it happened 75K's from here and we were told to sit tight and wait to be told where they were taking her, we waited for hours before the cop came and knocked on our door to tell us she would never come home.
Last night was pretty traumatic, bringing all that back up. It is some comfort to be a part of this Land Rover community of people who care.

I was on the phone to my brother in Perth late last night when my sister rang his wifes mobile and I heard the yell from the other end of their house, "SHE'S OK"
No Power, no water, Sendai is probably quite cold at this time of year. The house survived but there were a lot of breakages.

She has been thinking of moving back to Aus for a few years, wonder what she thinks today.

I can't ring her because she just had enought charge in her phone to make the call she did.

Steve

[carjunkieanon]

Hey Steve,

Really glad she's OK, and so sorry to hear about your daughter. pain never goes away does it.

Rick

[d2dave]

Having just read this thread I am glad that all is ok.

Dave.

[85 county]

Except didn't they send 300 odd of their crack earthquake guys to Christchurch? I hope they're back home now for this.

They had 70 US&R team members in CH CH, they exclusively handled the CTV building.
The Japanese US&R teams are recognized as being the best in the business next to the Kiwis, they were the first foreign team to arrive in NZ just as Kiwis are the first S&R foreign team to arrive on Japanese soil.

[LSD_AUTOMOTIVE]

So glad they're alright Steve!

[The Brun]

Thank God your daughter and kids are ok. Great to hear mate.

[Landy110]

I had a talk to my sister on the phone, at last. She was teaching at an international school when it happened and they had to get all the kids outside and they copped a bloody blizzard!
They eventually got rid of all those kids so she was able to go to her kids school and get them.

They got home just after dark, she knew nothing of the tsunami until later, I think she said they got it wrong in the warning and said ten centimetres.

The tsunami came to within 5 K's of her house.

She had no power when she got home so no light and she said people were going around giving out candles, Ginny said "no thanks" that's all she needs, a candle, an earthquake, the candle falls over, fire.

She is in a two story house and is not game to go upstairs because an aftershock could see her trapped up there.

She went out to try and get fuel for the kero heater this morning but they had none left so they are sleeping under lots of blankets downstairs with ski helmets on and the front door jammed wide open so they can make a run for it if another quake hits.

She is 300 odd K's from the reactors that are giving all the greif and there is a mountain range between her and them so she isn't too concerned about them. Her only route to get away from them is on the shinkansen which goes much closer to the reactors anyway, better to stay put.

I loved this bit though. A local school which has a pool has told local residents to help themselves to the water for toilet flushing etc, quite practical, but there was no point filling the cystern because the toilets in Japan are electronically controlled, you can't flush em without power. HOW BLOODY STUPID DO YOU NEED TO BE TO ADD TECHOLOGY TO A TOILET ???

Mind you they got power back on on friday night, pretty good effort I reckon, probably super essential so peolpe can flush their bloody toilets :D

Funny thing is that she used to live in the earthquake hot spot of Japan for years, she lived near Kobe when the big one hit there, no harm at her place. living there everyone had earthquake survival packs with food, water, torches, 1st aid etc. She took this with her to Sendai, a part of Japan that was considered relatively safe, Clever girl for keeping it.

[land864]

Great to hear your sister and nieces are all ok Steve:)

[rovercare]

HOW BLOODY STUPID DO YOU NEED TO BE TO ADD TECHOLOGY TO A TOILET ???



You pour water into the bowl, washing away your poo poo's, not in the top;)

[Landy110]

Update.
Ginny rang today to say they are getting out.

Good news !

They are driving out and heading south west to Shizuoka and the home of a fellow ex-pat Aus friend of hers.

Because of the damage to the roads and the huge mass exodus she thinks it could take as long as 4 days to get there.

Fingers crossed she has an uneventful journey.

And yes rovercare, I know you just dump it straight down the bowl but most of the people who have grown up in a country that thinks computerised toilets are a good idea don't have the ability to think outside the cystern as it where. :D

Steve

[Landy110]

Another update
They drove out of Sendai around noon yesterday and eventually pulled up somewhere and spent a night in a motel. Their first comfy warm night since thursday.

They decided to ditch the car and fly to Nagoya and I just got off the phone to her, they are on the ground there and just a short train ride from her friend's house in Shizuoka.

They are finally truly safe!

She will just crash until next week when they will start thinking about the future.

If you were listenning to the Richard Glover drive show on ABC radio this afternoon you may have heard her. I didn't, we don't get the show here.

When I told her about the big cues for fuel to get out of Sendai and Fukushimi she said that a lot of people spent friday night in their cars with engines running and heaters on watching news on their navigation screens, as a result they have no fuel left to get out of there. Poor buggers.

Steve

[slug_burner]

Landy110,

Glad to hear your loved ones have made it through a life changing event and they are ok.

[The Brun]

Thank God your sister and kids are ok. Great to hear mate. very very good mate.

[Landy110]

Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word "SAFE" I was previously unaware of....

So they survive the Quake
They survive the Blizzard
They survive the Tsunami
They survive the drive out
They get to Shizuoka and are safe......
1 relaxed safe night in Shizuoka and there is a 6.1 earthquake there !

That's tally for sis, time to abandon ship. She will be on the first flight home she could get on with her girls. Flying out on Friday evening, she will land nowhere near family but who cares, she will be in Aus.

One very telling thing she said was that as they walked through the terminal at Nagoya they walked past an escalator and when the girls felt the slight vibration from it in the floor they squeezed her hands tight and looked up at her in fear. Poor little buggers, I just want to hold them and tell them they are safe and know they really are.

Steve

[85 county]

Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word "SAFE" I was previously unaware of....

So they survive the Quake
They survive the Blizzard
They survive the Tsunami
They survive the drive out
They get to Shizuoka and are safe......
1 relaxed safe night in Shizuoka and there is a 6.1 earthquake there !

That's tally for sis, time to abandon ship. She will be on the first flight home she could get on with her girls. Flying out on Friday evening, she will land nowhere near family but who cares, she will be in Aus.

One very telling thing she said was that as they walked through the terminal at Nagoya they walked past an escalator and when the girls felt the slight vibration from it in the floor they squeezed her hands tight and looked up at her in fear. Poor little buggers, I just want to hold them and tell them they are safe and know they really are.

Steve

Maybe an ALTRO member would like to play Taxi, or even a bed?
How’s the Altro Taxi service to get them close to family?
international flight all they will have is 20Kgs Max, that’s not much for very long

[Landy110]

That's not a bad idea 85
I am not sure she will need much help, she will probably stay in the airport till she can fly to Sydney.
Thankfully she can afford to and is quite used to travelling so will be well packed I would imagine.

If needed I will post at the time, I don't want to give her destination away, she won't want a heap of reporters in her face.

Steve

[Outlaw]

Brilliant news that your sis is alright. One hell of a relief.

My inlaws are around tokyo and took us hours to get in contact.

Keep the updates coming.

[RichardK]

I am very happy for you with your sister being OK must be a great relief.

I feel for you losing your daughter, we understand what you went through then and will continue to do so

[Landy110]

This will probably be the final update.

My sister and her two girls flew into a QLD airport today, their plane was 4 hours late leaving Japan because it was very hard to get aircrew willing to go to Japan to man the flight out.

She was picked up by a friend she met in Sendai, another Aus family that lived there until mid last year, with whom they became very close. She and the girls are now safe at the friend's house.

I think that they are in the best place for now because they are with very close friends who know Sendai, who they shared their lives in Sendai with. I think it will help them to talk about what happenned.

Thankfully they didn't really see any of the mass devastation, they where outside the tsunami area and did not go rubber knecking to see what had happenned.

My Japanese brother in law stayed behind as he has a business there to attend to and his family, including 4 siblings and their families who all live within the 80 K exclusion zone around Fukushima.

I hope they will all come out of this unharmed.

Steve

[bob10]

Good news, thinking of you and yours, Bob @ Mary

[Landy110]

Just spoke to my sister tonight and thought I would share some of the things she said about life in Sendai and surrounds.

On the day they drove out of Sendai it snowed, lots of people with no running water got buckets of snow to melt and use to flush toilets etc. A friend of hers who has a gaiger counter has told her that her toilet is radioactive. The snow must have brought the radiation to ground all over the area but it washed away except for areas where it was concentrated.

She also said that the families in Japan are all about the family land and the whole family goes home on the three big holidays they have each year. Her husbands family comes from within the 80K zone around Fukushimi. No-one is going home for the holidays, the matriarch of the family rang her and asked if they would come but Ginny had to say no, the poor old granny, along with everyone in the area, has been given a gaiger counter and she said to Ginny "it was ok today", the poor dear, almost made me cry for her.

Lots of families that live within the 3K zone were allowed into there homes for two hours recently to get the few things they needed out. It was the first time they have been back and they will never be allowed back again.

All the people affected by the quake are basically buggered. There are just too many people to help. Farmers, fishermen and everything else has been wiped out.

My sister is looking at teaching jobs in Australia or elsewhere in Asia.