Earthquake

東北地方太平洋沿岸地震, meaning North-East Pacific-side Big Earthquake, hit Japan on 2011-03-11.
Most of the casualties were caused by the ensuing Tsunami, but some people actually died crushed by falling roofs.

I was in my office, near Shibuya, when the first (and biggest: Richter 8.8) tremor hit Tokyo at 14h46.
There had been a "before-shock" two days before, but people shrugged it off.
With this one, it looked serious, so people started evacuating buildings. To be honest, Tokyo buildings are quite safe as long as nothing sharp or heavy falls from cupboards, but it still depends on the magnitude of the earthquake (which was still unknown).

There were big aftershocks all afternoon, but past the first scare, there were 2 problems :
1) getting in touch with relatives and friends. The mobile networks were awfully clogged and mails often came a few hours late.
In this sense I was lucky, because I could get information from my dad in France, and it was really precious info since we have no TV in the office.

2) going home. All trains in the area were stopped, an the roads awfully jammed too, with motorways closed.
In this kind of situation the golden rule is : stay safe, don`t move. But, the office did not feel that safe (and, in case of blackout, we have no stove), and with shops closed and supermarkets empty (most work with low stock), should the situation last, a bad-looking situation would arise.
I could have stayed at a friend's in Tokyo, but with the fact that my lovely pregnant wife was waiting for me, I decided to try and go home anyways.

Even leaving my laptop and books in the office, I was still in formal shoes and spring-wishing light coat. Also, Tokyo is a big city, and I live in Yokohama.
But I was not the only one. My colleague B., who lives not too far from my home, gave it a try too. And we noticed that the sidewalks were crowded all the way home, over 20km far.

On the way, people looked calm. The waiting lines for buses and taxis were often over 200m, and the lines for the toilets in convenience stores were often more than 30 people long, but no violence or panic.

Some zones were blacked out, pitch black, but we spotted a delivery man trying to give his package anyways. Some people were wearing safety helmets - but we did not see any building crumbled.

Reaching home, tired but happy, I could discover the extent of the disaster in the North-East of the country. The area of Sendai is utterly destroyed...

We are expecting more aftershocks during all the week... So will be limiting all unnecessary movements.

People around me had it rough too...
My wife was in a station department store, having lunch. All the store area was evacuated following a local blackout, and she had to stand in the rain for a while, with no possiblity of going to the toilets or buying warming stuff in the store. At least, the restaurant is never getting its bill footed!

Her big sister, working in a hospital in central Tokyo, played it safe and stayed there. The trains started running again around 3h30, and she came home in the morning. It was a senseful decision since the risk of a long blackout in a hospital is low; but she still had to skip dinner!

Her little sister's company building had cracks in the roof and was evacuated. It probably means forced vacation for a while...

Many people on the west coast, where there is a lot of snow, lost their roof.

And most scary, the Sendai area (including an airport and a nuclear plant) were devastated by the tsunami.