When the earthquake occurred, I was at my office explaining about method to analysis data. Suddenly my office started shaking slowly for few seconds and turn bigger. I only waited for 4 seconds and I started walking out from the building. I have learned a lot about earthquake when I experienced Niigata Chuetsu earthquake, therefore eventhough it was a scary moment but I still can control myself to stay calm. The whole building started to shake strongly and it was a very noisy sound all around. Maybe for people who had never experience earthquake, they will think that the building is going to collapse.
Yonezawa city is located in the center between the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Japan. Earthquake is rare phenomenon here, therefore most of people here are not well prepared. Most of the workers were panic, we all assembled in the large ground behind the factory. The most scary thing when big earthquake like this occurred is all live line such as electric powers, water, phone lines will be out of order. We were lucky most of live line work as normal. Only all phone lines cannot be used. I tried to call my wife but the phone not even ringing.
I was really worried about my wife because it was her first time experiencing earthquake, she will be shocked and panic. I waited until the shake stopped, it took about 5-6 minutes. Then I immediately took my car and rushed to my house which is about 15 minutes from my office. As I imagined, my wife freaked out and crying scared. I never see her like that before, it makes me felt really sad. I was speechless and no single word came out from my mouth for her, I could only hold her tight in my arms. After a big earthquake like this, there will be a series of aftershock, therefore we decided to not stay in the house for a while. I took my car and went to the petrol station to refill petrol in my car, then we went to buy some instant food in case of emergency. At that moment no one were rushing to buy things yet because most of the people still don’t know what to do. Then we went to my company to report and I took my notebook pc home. At that evening when I watched TV, I was really shocked with the scale of the tsunami. The real panic happened the next day when everybody started filling petrol and buying everything in the shop. In a day all petrol, foods, daily supplies are gone!
Earthquake and tsunami destroyed most of logistic network in TOHOKU. Most of supplies are stopped and it started to turn to negative spiral when all oil and petrol are not enough for transportations. All petrol stations are closed they only have petrol for emergency usage such as ambulance, police patrol car and etc. During weekend we just stayed at home gathering information. Now at these moment supplies started to come but still have a lot of limitations. I waited for almost 2 hours or more 6:50am~9:00am just to fill about 20 litres of petrol which is less than ½ tank. Foods also very limited. The main reason is most of people are hoarding so there is not enough oil and supplies for affected area. It is getting better now, I was really sad and ironic without been noticed the people in safer place slowdown the supplies for needed ones. Nobody doing it purposely but it is how the economy works. We are all connected in economic world. Another reason why supplies is slow is due to the earthquake, oil factories and logistic companies have to check their facilities first to ensure the safety. I hope by next week most of logistic problems can be solved because most of disaster area needed supplies as soon as possible.
I started work on 14th March as usual. My wife was still scared because the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plan still in critical situation. However as Top Manager I have to show my commitment towards the company, two of our factories had been destroyed by tsunami and another one in Sendai city had major damage because of earthquake. I really felt grateful, although my wife was still in shock, however she really understand my situation and let me go to work. I felt complicated but I really love her so much, she is a great wife!
First day of work is a disaster. We cannot use phones and faxes so we cannot contact our clients or makers. We checked the damages then tried to continue gathering information. I ordered our IT department to printout all orders balance and checkout the materials that we are able to produce. We were lucky mobile internet can be used so we can contact many clients and makers using emails. Second day most phone lines can be used so we started to contact our client to ask their conditions. We set 3 stages for labeling our clients' conditions, RED as destroyed or cannot be reached, Yellow as can be reached but cannot operated for few days (weeks) and BLUE for fully operating. Production priority is focused on Blue level while setting up the supply chain. Even we had aftershock threat and power problem, we use whatever we have to support our clients. Most of clients and makers are now able to start working however some of them were destroyed in tsunami and will be taking long time to fully recover.
Some people asked me, why I went work at this kind of time, I simply said a lot people in trouble needed us. There is a lot of method to help. If I can help my clients through my work it is honorable things to do. However I had decided I will leave Japan when Malaysian Government or Japanese Government ask me to go back. I work as professional so I cannot just run from responsibility, I need some reason to return home. If Malaysian Government Authority read this blog please sponsor us in Yonezawa to go back to Malaysia so I have reason to apply for holiday to my company (laughing). I’m really in a complicated situation.
At this moment nothing happens yet, I will continue to monitor the situation. To be frankly the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station situation not showing any good results, I believe Japanese Government and Tokyo Power Corp with solve this problem. Yonezawa city is just 97km from Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant The radiation level is rising up however it is still in a safe zone. I hope they can solve this problem before it became worst. I am also worried about how radiation will affect the soil, water and air for future. I will write about Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in my next post.
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