One of my good friends from college began taking Japanese language lessons more than a decade ago. He then up and moved to Japan and has lived there ever since. He sent around this email last night, which I am posting with his permission:
Update and Musings
greetings, all.
my father suggested i write to everyone who might be interested to know what was happening in japan when i left, and when [my father] suggests his boys do something, well, he usually means it.
first, thank you for your kind inquiries after my health. i am fine and have taken refuge in our family’s hometown, ye olde village of hingham, massachusetts.
taken refuge from what, you may ask. allow me to break it down for you using my experience as my only (and subjective) point of reference.
things in tokyo were as orderly as they could be, but there was a distinct sense that things were close to becoming out of control in terms of the nuclear power plant and in terms of day to day life.
i should say that i don’t know of a single building in tokyo that fell down due to the quake. we were spared the devastation one sees in the news.
as far as the fukushima plant goes, of the 4 reactors 3 were active at the time of the earthquake/tsunami. at the time i left, they had to cool down all three formerly active reactors but had just one pump to get cooling liquid inside. at one point, the man with the task of making sure the fuel in this pump doesn’t run out left his post to do something else and, sure enough, the pump ran out of fuel and the rods were exposed. then the pool of water at the fourth reactor, which hadn’t been a problem at the outset, caught fire. then the power company started saying they were going to reduce the number of workers at the plant, which the prime minister encouraged them to avoid.
i have total sympathy for the delicate nature of what the workers at the plant are doing, but it wasn’t a confidence inspiring situation.