Ms. K (a woman in her 30’s) K さん （３０代）

February 18, May 11-12, June 2, 2016 I was working at a day-care center in a beachfront town on that day. It was a nap time. We were supposed to wake up the children at 3 o’clock. During the long quake, I was shouting in my head “Stop (the quake) quickly”. Every teacher was calm and not panicking. I told the children, “Everything is fine. Just wait.” It was a long tremor. The windows of the building shattered and fell on the floor. The children listened to me obediently and there was no child crying. I think we had a trusting relationship with the children. If there were only adults, we might not have evacuated. We put jackets and shoes on the children and then gathered in the garden. They calmly lined up in one line. Nobody broke the line or panicked. We handed over about 50 children to their parents who came to pick them up and took 50 other children to a higher ground to refuge. We had many teachers hired locally who suggested Tsunami would come after a big earthquake and also knew a different route to a mountain instead of going to a usual location used for our evacuation drill, we took that route to escape. Only locals would have known that route. There were long stone steps and slopes. The town was swallowed by muddy stream of the Tsunami and I heard the sound of buildings being destroyed. I thought “this can’t be happening, right?” The day-care center was completely destroyed with no trace of it. What if we stayed in the garden? What if we were late to evacuate? What if we went to the usual evacuation drill place? We would have been dead. The decision made in a split second saved us. The street sign marking where the tsunami from Chili Earthquake came to was completely submerged. The tsunami caught us off guard since we thought it would not come this far. Adults evacuated only because of the children. We were saved by the children. The parents who came to pick them up later thanked me, but I thanked them instead. The gymnasium on the hill where we escaped to had broken glasses all over and we could enter. So, we got in and stayed in the warehouse in the playground. There were about 1,000 people in this playground to refuge. Even there were some food, it was not distributed as it would have been unfair to some as there were not enough for everyone. The children didn’t want to go to a dark and dirty bathroom and had accidents. As we escaped without brining anything, I had the children wear pants that I made out of newspapers and paper bags. If there were only adults, we may not have escaped. I felt that my mission was accomplished by saving children’s lives. The road was completely cut off and I couldn’t go home for five days. My mother-in-law took care of my two-year-old son. I was worried. I had tears no matter whom I met, because I was on the border of life or death. It made me happy simply that I was living. On the 3rd day, I went searching for goods relying only on my sense of directions as there were no roads. I didn’t know but the Self Defense Force (that comes to rescue) makes roads first. I won’t forget what happened. I would like to reflect on the lessons learned in the future, but I’m afraid people may forget. After the disaster, I couldn’t talk about this experience for a while. I didn’t want to remember, because my life was as difficult as it could be. I tried to forget things that I didn’t want to remember. Now I can finally speak about it, recalling little by little. Training is important to deal with various experiences. I think there is no limit to possible scenarios, but it’s important to build applicable skills and take actions on a flexible basis. People who lost family members continue to cry. If it were me, can I switch the way I think that “the deceased will not be pleased if I keep crying”? How do I talk to people who lost family? Should I even try to talk to them? I wonder how they feel. Now my family comes first and it’s my top priority. I worked as a nursery school teacher for 14 years but wondered if my only life would be ok for being this busy and my day staring so early? I want to value the time I spend with my small son. It was my dream to become a nursery school teacher, but I left work after the disaster. Now I am doing things that I couldn’t do while I was working. I lost a car and other stuff, but I can live without them. I want to live a happy life, without stretching myself too much, although I get depressed from time to time. Enjoy living with my spared life.