Japan Earthquake

We had just finished our lunch and a bit of shopping in Akihabara. We were walking back and had just reached Kanda, which is about 15 minutes from our hotel when an old lady started running and shouting behind us. To be honest, we thought she was mad and just kept walking. We saw her speak to a police officer, and then run inside a building. It was then that we heard a noise that can only be described as the grinding of steel and brick. The floor also started to sway, just like we were on a boat.

Everyone just stopped and looked at each other, almost to say "what's going on, this isn't usual". Less than a minute before, it was a buzzing city centre with so much noise. And then silence! All you could hear was the grinding sound and the bleeps from the traffic signals going off in the background. Traffic stopped, people stood still and just looked up as the buildings swayed all around us. Even the police officers just looked so helpless. There wasn't anything anyone could do apart from wait. We felt so helpless - it was the scariest experience we have ever been through.

I just took Leanne's hand and we ran to the centre of a cross roads to try and minimise what could fall around us. But to be honest, we were surrounded by many large sky-scrappers, and it was probably little help. But I needed to do something!

Some of the buildings around us started to sway more and more and people just looked up and pointed. Despite the despair, everyone also seemed to have their camera phones out, but we were thinking about other things. We needed to get to open space, and remembered the Imperial Park.

The tremors must have lasted for about a minute but felt so much longer. Around the swaying buildings, some of the glass windows started to smash and crash down on the street floor, but all of the buildings themselves seemed ok.

When the tremors stopped, we both had sea legs, butterflies in our tummies and and felt really nervous. Everyone then looked at each other and you could hear people laughing and shouting, almost like "phew, it's over".

Leanne and I decided that the park was the safest place, and got the map out. Leanne was amazingly calm and found where we were and how we could get to the park. As we started our walk, we passed a large bank with a concrete exterior, and the base of the building was all cracked - almost like it had pulled away from the street. I took a photo of this as it just showed the sheer power of the earthquake.

As we made our way to the park, we also saw areas of the street which had been cornered off, where glass and concrete from the buildings had hit the street. There were also lots of employees from the offices outside, with white hardhats on and what looked like emergency earthquake bags. They looked well prepared.

Then, around 5 minutes after the first tremor, another large tremor started and people started to look up at the buildings again and others screamed. This second time the buildings seemed to sway even more and I really thought there was going to be much more damage this time. Again, we headed to the centre of the road, I just grabbed Leanne tight and we stood there together. This second tremor seemed a lot quicker, maybe 20 to 30 seconds, and then it stopped.

The scariest thing is that once you have felt more than one tremor, how do you know there will not be 4 or 5! This played on our minds. We needed to get to the park, so Leanne got out the map and we walked very quickly to the park. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the Imperial Park, and we really did feel so relieved when we reached this large open space. In my head I was looking at the large sky-scrappers around and thinking whether they would reach us if they fell over. The park itself was closed, but a large area to the left of the entrance was open and seemed to be a central place for lots of people to gather. We found a space by a small tree and sat down on the grass. We were both shaking and just held each other tight. We didn't have anything to say, but felt so glad to both be safe and well.

The sky then turned grey and there was a really moody atmosphere around. We had blue sky in the morning but it was now starting to rain. We took cover by the garden toilets for about 30 minutes and then started to see office employees and builders walking back into the city. It was getting cold and the rain was coming down, so we decide to head back and try and get to our hotel.

The streets were really crowded, so many people were standing outside. All of the trains were out, so everyone was trying to get taxis and walking everywhere. When we reached our hotel, there were crowds of people trying to get rooms for the night. They were all being turned away. Once the staff realised we had a room, they let us into the hotel. The lifts were out so we had to walk up the emergency exit stairs. Whilst walking up, we were told that our hotel was very new and had been build using the latest earthquake proof technology. That made us feel a lot safer, and we were just glad to be inside.

We are now in our hotel room, frantically emailing our friends and family to tell them we are safe and sound. We are also watching BBC World News and just realising how bad this earthquake was. We felt the tremors, but didn't realise the overall scale and impact of it.

This will certainly be one day in our honeymoon that we will never forget.

We will continue to keep you posted,
Andy and Leanne