My goodness! 2011/3/12
The building where our office is located (in Osaka City) shook for a long time, which was a little unnerving.
When it subsided, I checked the Internet and saw an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 off the coast of Sanriku!
In my hometown of Kurihara City in northern Miyagi Prefecture, it was a seismic intensity of 7!
It is where the family home of my best friend from high school is located.
Are they okay?
I don't have a mobile phone for one-segment broadcasting so that I couldn't watch TV either.
While it was shaking, I thought to myself, "This is a big one. It's an earthquake on the scale of the Great Hanshin Earthquake."
Oh no!
The town where I was born and raised is also at intensity six upper, right?
I hope everything is okay; I hope it's not too terrible.
I hurried home, but to see the images of the town where I was born and raised being swallowed up by the tsunami and disappearing whole!
Mom, are you okay?
Did you manage to escape?
Please, somehow, manage to escape.
I don't want you to die, Mom!
Please, somehow, manage to survive.
When it subsided, I checked the Internet and saw an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 off the coast of Sanriku!
In my hometown of Kurihara City in northern Miyagi Prefecture, it was a seismic intensity of 7!
It is where the family home of my best friend from high school is located.
Are they okay?
I don't have a mobile phone for one-segment broadcasting so that I couldn't watch TV either.
While it was shaking, I thought to myself, "This is a big one. It's an earthquake on the scale of the Great Hanshin Earthquake."
Oh no!
The town where I was born and raised is also at intensity six upper, right?
I hope everything is okay; I hope it's not too terrible.
I hurried home, but to see the images of the town where I was born and raised being swallowed up by the tsunami and disappearing whole!
Mom, are you okay?
Did you manage to escape?
Please, somehow, manage to escape.
I don't want you to die, Mom!
Please, somehow, manage to survive.
For now, I just want you to pray. 2011/3/12
During the Hanshin Earthquake, deaths continued to rise as time passed, reaching over 6,400.
I hope it doesn't turn out the same way.
When I got home, I saw images of the tsunami surging towards Kesennuma, where my other best friend from high school, Mr. O, lived, and towards Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture.
When I simultaneously saw images of the Natori River, I thought, 'It's terrible, but at least they're holding out somehow, thank goodness. '
At first, the images were of the river opposite the town where I was born and raised.
When I graduated from junior high school, a new bridge had just been completed, and the tsunami was engulfing all the houses and cars up to the point where it would significantly reduce the time it took to get to Sendai.
There were a few cars on the bridge heading towards my town.
I thought they were in danger, but in the blink of an eye, they were all swept away by the tsunami that had already crossed the bridge.
After that...
When the camera panned in closer, I was speechless.
The town where I was born and raised was utterly swallowed by the tsunami, which even engulfed the junior high school and the elementary school further north.
It must be more than 5 kilometers from the beach to there.
The broadcast earlier said that the tsunami reached the first floor of the Sendai Ward Office, which is 10 kilometers from the beach.
I can only pray that the number of deaths does not increase geometrically as it did after the Hanshin Earthquake.
My good friend K lives in Tokyo.
My hometown, where my good friend K's old school sailing club used to hold regular training camps (you also participated), was instantly wiped out by a catastrophe like nothing I had ever seen.
I saw stone monuments recording the Chilean and Sanriku tsunamis as a child.
I had also seen a tsunami come in just above the sea level at the harbor.
But no one had ever seen anything like this footage.
But that was the town where I was born and raised.
Maybe God was angry because our country had been doing nothing but stupid things for over twenty years.
I can only pray that the images we see are of people who were innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were taken after everyone had evacuated.
Requiem 12 March 2011
When I was a child, I couldn't wait for summer.
As a child raised in a problematic family, I couldn't wait for the summer with its blue skies.
Every day was a day for swimming.
That's probably why I went to Hawaii 47 times.
As a Haseko employee, I would go to the office in the summer with my swimming costume and towel.
I would always make time to go to the Osaka Pool in Senba Park, an outdoor 50m x 8 lane pool with stands for competitive swimming events.
Next to it was a diving pool for holding competitions.
Of course, the water was so deep that you couldn't touch the bottom with your feet.
In the summer in my hometown, the reckless kids would swim far out into the distance without a care in the world, but I would always feel an inexplicable fear at a certain point and not go any further.
Instinctively, I knew that I couldn't die until I had fulfilled my mission and that a wise man would avoid danger.
The sea in my hometown was famous for its rough waves, and when I was a child, at least one person from Sendai would die every year while swimming there.
I even saw a drowned body that had swelled up like a sunfish and was being displayed on the concrete of the fish market in the harbor a few days later.
As Cocteau or someone else wrote in a poem, "When the water is warm, you feel a sense of familiarity, but when it is cold, you feel a sense of loneliness."
It was precisely the feeling I always had at a certain point when I swam out to sea past the rough waves just off the beach.
It was precisely the feeling I always had at a certain point when I swam out to sea past the rough waves just off the beach.
My ears are like the shells of shells, and the feeling of missing the sound of the sea is the feeling I get when I look at the sea.
It's the feeling I get on the beach.
When I go far out to sea, I feel that intense feeling for a moment, but I always think of an unfathomable fear afterward.
I always turn back at that point.
It could be because I instinctively measure the distance I can swim back to the beach, for example, if I get cramped.
The sea revealed a scene like the Book of Genesis, which no one had seen before yesterday, and swallowed up the town where I was born and raised like a monster with a moist tongue.
The date changed, and the elementary and junior high schools I attended were safe.
NHK reported that 2,000 people were waiting for rescue in the water that had flooded the entire area.
I could do nothing, even if I wanted to fly away from this place.
All I could do was sleep.
I woke up after not sleeping for three hours.
I took a bath.
The only thing I could do was to write a requiem like this.
I heard that the Self-Defense Forces were heading to the elementary school to rescue people, pushing through the rubble!
My hometown 2011/3/12
Many people in Japan only heard of the name Yuriage for the first time yesterday or today on the news, but it is a port town.
It is a fishing town on the coast where the clear-flowing Hirose River merges with the Natori River.
The latter takes its source from the upper reaches of the Akiu hot spring, another clear stream, before flowing into the Pacific Ocean.
The blood clam caught in the bay leading to the port here was Japan's most highly rated sushi ingredient.
For example, the restaurant Nakata in the Imperial Hotel had decided that the blood clam was the Yuriage blood clam.
The normally beautiful coastline that stretches all the way to Kujukuri Beach appeared to be something out of the Book of Genesis.
Like other towns, it was almost completely wiped out, with the exception of elementary and junior high schools.
My mother's safety is highly uncertain, but I heard that the Self-Defense Forces rescued the people waiting to be rescued at the elementary school.
As I was writing this, Ms. K called.
She said, "They showed us a video of the Ise Bay Typhoon in the classroom," so I interrupted her and said, "That's not the point. This earthquake is one of the biggest in human history, and there is nothing to compare it to.
You probably don't understand this because you only read the Internet and don't read newspapers, but the whole world has stopped its normal news and is broadcasting NHK news.
Even Al Jazeera is doing the same.
New Zealand is, too.
Something like this... something that can instantly destroy the coastal areas of the eastern half of Japan... even war cannot do that.
The energy released was thousands of times greater than that of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, and it was a disaster that humanity had never seen before.
No other disaster could compare to this.
That's why Secretary of State Clinton said the US would do anything to help.
But when I said that, she was at a loss for words.
When I tried to regain my composure and told her that the energy released was probably thousands of times greater than that of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she just said, "Hmm."
I hope the governments and people who have seen the footage from yesterday and today will realize how empty it is to be caught up in one's egotism and spend time in political maneuvering. Otherwise, just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the number of deaths will continue to increase, and the wounds suffered by the Earth will continue to grow.
During the Hanshin Earthquake, deaths continued to rise as time passed, reaching over 6,400.
I hope it doesn't turn out the same way.
When I got home, I saw images of the tsunami surging towards Kesennuma, where my other best friend from high school, Mr. O, lived, and towards Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture.
When I simultaneously saw images of the Natori River, I thought, 'It's terrible, but at least they're holding out somehow, thank goodness. '
At first, the images were of the river opposite the town where I was born and raised.
When I graduated from junior high school, a new bridge had just been completed, and the tsunami was engulfing all the houses and cars up to the point where it would significantly reduce the time it took to get to Sendai.
There were a few cars on the bridge heading towards my town.
I thought they were in danger, but in the blink of an eye, they were all swept away by the tsunami that had already crossed the bridge.
After that...
When the camera panned in closer, I was speechless.
The town where I was born and raised was utterly swallowed by the tsunami, which even engulfed the junior high school and the elementary school further north.
It must be more than 5 kilometers from the beach to there.
The broadcast earlier said that the tsunami reached the first floor of the Sendai Ward Office, which is 10 kilometers from the beach.
I can only pray that the number of deaths does not increase geometrically as it did after the Hanshin Earthquake.
My good friend K lives in Tokyo.
My hometown, where my good friend K's old school sailing club used to hold regular training camps (you also participated), was instantly wiped out by a catastrophe like nothing I had ever seen.
I saw stone monuments recording the Chilean and Sanriku tsunamis as a child.
I had also seen a tsunami come in just above the sea level at the harbor.
But no one had ever seen anything like this footage.
But that was the town where I was born and raised.
Maybe God was angry because our country had been doing nothing but stupid things for over twenty years.
I can only pray that the images we see are of people who were innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were taken after everyone had evacuated.
Requiem 12 March 2011
When I was a child, I couldn't wait for summer.
As a child raised in a problematic family, I couldn't wait for the summer with its blue skies.
Every day was a day for swimming.
That's probably why I went to Hawaii 47 times.
As a Haseko employee, I would go to the office in the summer with my swimming costume and towel.
I would always make time to go to the Osaka Pool in Senba Park, an outdoor 50m x 8 lane pool with stands for competitive swimming events.
Next to it was a diving pool for holding competitions.
Of course, the water was so deep that you couldn't touch the bottom with your feet.
In the summer in my hometown, the reckless kids would swim far out into the distance without a care in the world, but I would always feel an inexplicable fear at a certain point and not go any further.
Instinctively, I knew that I couldn't die until I had fulfilled my mission and that a wise man would avoid danger.
The sea in my hometown was famous for its rough waves, and when I was a child, at least one person from Sendai would die every year while swimming there.
I even saw a drowned body that had swelled up like a sunfish and was being displayed on the concrete of the fish market in the harbor a few days later.
As Cocteau or someone else wrote in a poem, "When the water is warm, you feel a sense of familiarity, but when it is cold, you feel a sense of loneliness."
It was precisely the feeling I always had at a certain point when I swam out to sea past the rough waves just off the beach.
It was precisely the feeling I always had at a certain point when I swam out to sea past the rough waves just off the beach.
My ears are like the shells of shells, and the feeling of missing the sound of the sea is the feeling I get when I look at the sea.
It's the feeling I get on the beach.
When I go far out to sea, I feel that intense feeling for a moment, but I always think of an unfathomable fear afterward.
I always turn back at that point.
It could be because I instinctively measure the distance I can swim back to the beach, for example, if I get cramped.
The sea revealed a scene like the Book of Genesis, which no one had seen before yesterday, and swallowed up the town where I was born and raised like a monster with a moist tongue.
The date changed, and the elementary and junior high schools I attended were safe.
NHK reported that 2,000 people were waiting for rescue in the water that had flooded the entire area.
I could do nothing, even if I wanted to fly away from this place.
All I could do was sleep.
I woke up after not sleeping for three hours.
I took a bath.
The only thing I could do was to write a requiem like this.
I heard that the Self-Defense Forces were heading to the elementary school to rescue people, pushing through the rubble!
My hometown 2011/3/12
Many people in Japan only heard of the name Yuriage for the first time yesterday or today on the news, but it is a port town.
It is a fishing town on the coast where the clear-flowing Hirose River merges with the Natori River.
The latter takes its source from the upper reaches of the Akiu hot spring, another clear stream, before flowing into the Pacific Ocean.
The blood clam caught in the bay leading to the port here was Japan's most highly rated sushi ingredient.
For example, the restaurant Nakata in the Imperial Hotel had decided that the blood clam was the Yuriage blood clam.
The normally beautiful coastline that stretches all the way to Kujukuri Beach appeared to be something out of the Book of Genesis.
Like other towns, it was almost completely wiped out, with the exception of elementary and junior high schools.
My mother's safety is highly uncertain, but I heard that the Self-Defense Forces rescued the people waiting to be rescued at the elementary school.
As I was writing this, Ms. K called.
She said, "They showed us a video of the Ise Bay Typhoon in the classroom," so I interrupted her and said, "That's not the point. This earthquake is one of the biggest in human history, and there is nothing to compare it to.
You probably don't understand this because you only read the Internet and don't read newspapers, but the whole world has stopped its normal news and is broadcasting NHK news.
Even Al Jazeera is doing the same.
New Zealand is, too.
Something like this... something that can instantly destroy the coastal areas of the eastern half of Japan... even war cannot do that.
The energy released was thousands of times greater than that of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, and it was a disaster that humanity had never seen before.
No other disaster could compare to this.
That's why Secretary of State Clinton said the US would do anything to help.
But when I said that, she was at a loss for words.
When I tried to regain my composure and told her that the energy released was probably thousands of times greater than that of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she just said, "Hmm."
I hope the governments and people who have seen the footage from yesterday and today will realize how empty it is to be caught up in one's egotism and spend time in political maneuvering. Otherwise, just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the number of deaths will continue to increase, and the wounds suffered by the Earth will continue to grow.
The Platters - My Prayer- Lyrics
2024/12/8 in Kyoto
