I am surviving! 地震無事です

家族の所用で短期で日本に戻っていて仙台駅前で地震に遭いました。NHK仙台放送局が開放していたスペースで２晩過ごし、３晩目から友人宅などに移動する見込みです（移動できなければNHKあたりにいると思います）。

日本の携帯の電池が切れてしまい、プラグの形状が特殊（サムスン）なため充電できず、当面携帯が通じない可能性が高いです。

地震発生から１時間後に両親と弟の無事が確認できています。その後石巻市内の電話網用の非常要電源の燃料がなくなったとみられ連絡が取れていませんが、電話した当時高台の上にある自宅におり、かつ自宅建物が無事だそうで、おそらくその後同じ高台の上にある避難所に避難しているのではないかと推定されます。

This is from my Facebook post at 13:09 JST on 13 Mar 2011.

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Thanks for all of your messages! Finally I am online from my own account.

Now I am in Japan for short and in Sendai, the biggest city in the area hit by the earthquake. I talked with my brother and mom c.a. 1 hour after the earthquake and my parents and brother are fine. My aunt and cousins are fine but I have no information about my grandma, who is in a sanatorium located in the area severely hit by tsunamis.

After the first call after the earthquake I am not reachable to my parents over the phone but I guess they are alive in a designated evacuation point in the city of Ishinomaki as they were at home on a hill where the tsunamis did not hit. Telephone networks in Ishinomaki seems not working as I guess the generator can’t supply the electricity anymore after it’s fuel is fully used.

I spent two nights in NHK broadcasting station as they opened its public space for 24 hours – I had electricity generated by NHK’s own generator and some water and foods which NHK provided and partly I got from a convenience store. I am fine and probably I spend some more nights in Sendai at a friend of mine coming back from Tokyo today.

It is impossible to go to where my parents are in because some area (it’s 50km/30mi) between there and where I am now are hit by many tsunamis.

My 89-year-old grandma is not reachable and she may have died of tsunami as the the area where sanatorium she is in is located is flushed by the tsunami.

As i watch TVs it seems tsunamis after the earthquake is tremendous and an incredible number of people are missing because of the tsunamis. The earthquake itself seems not to kill many people but so-called “secondary disasters” which are tsunami, fire, landslide and so on. Especially tsunami is disastrous and I guess more than ten thousand people may have died.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your messages. I will update my situation here.

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