Friday, March 11-Part 2--Our world has been rocked

Soon after returning to our Hong Kong hotel room, I logged on to check my email and found three messages of increasing urgency from the Yokosuka City Disaster Prevention Information Email Service sent at 3:01, 3:37, and 4:15 p.m. JST. The last one, whose subject line was “Large-scale tidal wave warning,” ordered anyone near the coast to evacuate to higher ground immediately. This is not the first time I’ve received a tidal wave warning—one was issued in February of last year when Chile was rocked by a M8.8 earthquake. The resulting tsunami, by the time it finally reached Japan, was only 20 cm (7.87 in) high, and probably would not have been noticed by the average Joe had it not been so widely publicized. So my mind was weighing that fact against the urgent tone of the city’s last email when I turned on the TV to find out what Pacific country had experienced an earthquake today large enough to trigger a tsunami.

Oh sh*t.

The earthquake was in Japan.

And it was a huge one--M8.9.

Looks like the epicenter was well north of Yokosuka, yet the news is showing buildings on fire in Tokyo, which is only an hour away from our house. I am scared…Alina is home alone. Did anything fall on her? Is the house okay? Is the power on? Was there a tsunami in our area (our house is on a hill so should be safe, but the base could be very vulnerable)? What about Jim’s coworkers, my students, our friends…. I have sent an email to my friend Yumiko on her cell phone. If there is cell phone service, she will reply quickly and let us know what is really going on around home.