University of Sheffield exchange student Yudai Washida, 21
By Nathan Brown, reporter for Mapped Out
With the affects of March’s earthquake still being felt in Japan, University of Sheffield exchange student Yudai Washida, 21, tells how it feels to be on the other side of the world when disaster strikes back home.
“When I first heard an earthquake had struck near Sendai, Japan – where I attend Tohoku University – I wasn’t worried about my friends and family at all. In fact, my first stupid thought when my friend Akihiro phoned with the news was, “oh, again?”
I had come to London with my friend Kizuhiro Nakamuraya, 21, also from Tohoku, when the call came. We had come to take in the sights and relax before a trip to Italy I was taking for my sports engineering course at Sheffield. It was early morning, and I had just arrived at Victoria Coach Station when my mobile rang. Akihiro’s voice sounded strange when I answered it:
“Have you heard the news?”
“No”, I said. “What’s happened?”
“Sendai’s been hit by an Earthquake.”
You might assume his words would frighten me, but coming from Japan I’m so used to earthquakes that I wasn’t worried by them. Where I live, we laugh when a small quake – what we would refer to as ‘sindo 4’ – hits. Even when a bigger tremor of ‘sindo 5’ strikes, Japanese architecture is built to withstand it and little real damage is caused.
That’s why my reply to Akihiro was so calm, even when I knew my family – and especially my university friends – would have felt the quake.
Big earthquake
“Another big earthquake? Well, my friends will be alright. They’re used to it.”
“No,” Akihiro told me, “It’s ‘sindo 6–upper’ in Sendai and ‘sindo 7’ at the epicentre. A tsunami’s hit the coast of Tohoku.”
When I heard the words ‘sindo 7’ I got a chill, and couldn’t imagine what Japan was facing. On the measure of earthquake intensity, sindo 7 is the same as the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, which struck far from my home when I was only five. It’s infamous in Japan as the biggest earthquake since the Second World War. In school, we were even taught about the danger of earthquakes by watching a video about it.
Ending the call, I dashed into the nearest McDonalds to use their Wi-Fi. I needed to know more about the quake – and whether my friends and family were okay. I tried phoning my parents, but couldn’t get through. Then I tried Yoichi Hatori, 21, a friend in Sendai – but again the call failed.
Relief
Turning on my laptop, I tried to find out more. I started with Yahoo Japan, then I hit Mixi, Facebook and my emails to try and find out if my friends were okay. It was a relief to see a message from my mum. “I’m home,” she wrote. “I can’t contact your dad, brother or sister, but I’m sure they’re okay. I just wanted to let you know.”
It turned out my family had had to spend the night at work and school because of the quake, but thankfully, they weren’t hurt.
I relaxed slightly, but I had known my family would probably be okay – they live near Tokyo, some distance from where the earthquake struck, and only experienced a ‘sindo 5-upper’ level vibration. I was far more worried about my friends in Sendai: they live near the coast, and there was a chance they had been beside it when the tsunami hit. The tidal wave there had flushed away buildings up to five kilometres in-land, and although Sendai was 150 kilometres from the earthquake’s epicentre, it had still experienced a ‘sindo 6-upper’ quake.
Worry
I found it impossible to imagine that my friends might not be alright, so I carried on as normal, seeing the sights in London with Kazuhiro, and told myself there was nothing more I could do. Maybe it was my imagination, but I’m sure I saw people staring at us over the tops of their newspapers that afternoon. Londoners kept coming up to us, asking about the quake and trying to be kind. But they didn’t have anything new to tell us and we ended up worrying even more. As we walked around London, our conversation kept returning to the earthquake.
Then it was time to head to Italy, where I still struggled to make contact with my friends back home. I was irritated and worried, but everyone there was concerned about my friends and family and tried to help cheer me up.
Eventually – after more than a week of worry – I found out they were all safe. The Tsunami had damaged equipment and made it hard for them to communicate with the outside world, but when they finally did, they told me they were fine and not to worry about them. They said they had never been in such a huge quake and complained that their water, gas and electricity were all offline.
£570 million damage
The quake was big enough to shake the books off library shelves and widows out of their frames in Sendai. It caused £570 million of damage to Tohoku University – where I’d still be studying if I hadn’t come to Sheffield. A lot of my friends had to take refuge in a local school because it was the only way they could get food or use the toilet. With the uni closed until May, they’ve spent their time helping to clean up the debris around them.
I feel lucky to have missed the disaster, but it’s hard to imagine what it’s been like in Sheffield. I haven’t been back to Japan since it happened, and even if I said I wanted to, my friends and family would just say “you’re crazy, why do you need to come to Japan when it’s so dangerous? If you have the money for a plane ticket, you should donate it to a relief fund instead.” I think they’re sort of joking, but In any case, I decided when I left Japan that I wouldn’t return until my studies were finished and nothing is going to change that.
I also feel bad that I haven’t been involved in much fundraising activity here. By the time I returned to Sheffield in late March, most of the city’s events for Japan had come and gone. I did attend a Save Japan Sheffield meeting, though, and was pleased to feel the warmth shown by the wider world towards my home.”
Mapped Out is a magazine produced by MA Magazine Journalism students at the University of Sheffield.
