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

Originally Posted by 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.

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

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

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.