3/11/11 Personal Experience

It was March 11th, 2011. I was a ninth grader at the time and I was at my school the American School in Japan. It was during my fourth period that the earthquake hit. My fourth period happened to be a free period so my friends and I were goofing off on the bench in the common area when the bench started shaking. Obviously not knowing what was happening we yelled at one of our friends to stop shaking the bench when a teacher ran out and yelled for everyone to get under something stable. Once the shaking subsided a little we were moved to the field, since we had a free we were some of the first people out. Not aware of the great implications of the earthquake we spun around the field, and lay on the ground feeling the earth move in waves beneath us. We could see the trees in the courtyard swaying and the field began to fill with students and faculty ranging from 5 to 60 years old. Some people were crying and some were laughing but all of us were in awe at how tremendous the shaking seemed to be. When the earthquake stopped, we boarded our buses to go home. I got on to my friend's bus however, because I was originally supposed to spend the night there. (Obviously at the time I was unaware of how serious the situation was). Our normally 45minute long ride was expanded into a 5-hour busride. We could see all the salary men walking on the streets, as all the train lines had shut down. The highway was packed and cars were veering off to the bathroom and rest stops. Many buses had to stop at convenience stores for the little kids to use the bathroom and for students to buy food. Some of us got home around 2am. Since our phones weren't able to get signal many people couldn't reach their parents and families. I used an app on the Iphone, Viber, to call my parents through wifi signals. It wasn't until the few days following the earthquake that the severity of the situation was acknowledged. School was suspended for 2 weeks but students and their families were allowed to return whenever they deemed reasonable, if ever at all. Many families moved that summer.