第二十四章

11 March 2011 15:23

Seeing Hiroki get carried away like a rag doll confirmed to the students, and the adults in the room, what real danger they were in. The probable death of a fellow classmate to add to the confirmed death of Hiroshi invoked a sense of distress in some, who continued to scream, and quiet contemplation in others.

‘Haruka-chan,’ I said, ‘what is going on? This is just terrible, I can’t believe what happened to Hiroshi and now Hiroki has been carried away. Do you think we’ll be safe?’

‘I don’t know, Kimiko-chan,’ Haruka said. ‘Even when the earthquake began, I felt a little scared but still safe as there were adults around to look after us. But the power of this one…as buildings started to fall down…and then poor Hiroshi.’

At this, Haruka burst into tears, both from the tragedy of the situation enhanced by a feeling of guilt at getting angry with Hiroshi that morning for the attention he had given her.

‘Don’t cry,’ I said and moved towards Haruka embracing her and holding her close, at the same time wishing Okāsan was here to do the same to me. ‘What happened to him and to Hiroki is unbelievable and I can’t quite accept it yet, but we need to make sure that we stay alert and focused as from seeing the size of the tsunami on the television, I don’t think that the danger is over yet.’

Around us, the staff at the port office were not panicking but there was a sense of urgency in their movements as they rushed from room to room. Haruka continued to sob softly in my arms. From the balcony there was something of a commotion brewing.

‘The water keeps on rising!’ Natsumi shouted. ‘When is it going to stop?’

‘It’s starting to come in through the first floor windows,’ Asuka added with a wobble to her voice.

I encouraged Haruka to stand up with me and walk over to the balcony as although I had no reason to disbelieve Natsumi and Asuka I wanted to see this with my own eyes. It was true that the water was rising, now about one and a half metres high, and from what I could see in the distance did not look like stopping. What was worrying me more than the water itself was what the tsunami had picked up on its way as fishing boats, cars and small buildings were now floating along crashing into each other and anything else that got in their way. I could not only hear the sound of flowing water but also the screech of scraping metal.

‘Don’t worry, children,’ Ohara-san spoke from just inside the doorway, sensing our anxiety. ‘I know how scared you all must be feeling but you have to trust me when I say that you are safe here. The building has been built with deep foundations which makes it much stronger than the warehouses you have seen falling down. The earthquake itself has caused very little damage to this office and even with water at twice its current level, we will be fine.’

I don’t know if it was because I was the only one who had turned to look at Ohara-san when I first heard him speak, or because of the fear that I was struggling to keep under control myself, but I thought that I saw in his eyes something that revealed he did not fully believe what he was telling us. 

The ping of a telephone wire as it stretched and snapped drew my attention back to what was going on below us. As well as the loud banging and scraping of metal, car horns were now sounding as they floated along on the surface of the water.

I decided to find out more about what was happening across the rest of Japan so came back inside, still walking with Haruka, to look again at the latest reports on the television. There were pictures now being broadcast of the earthquake as it struck. Many of these seemed like they had come from internal security cameras and I looked on in awe at the power of the earthquake as it turned offices upside down – reminding me of Okāsan’s workplace, causing me to worry about her again – and transformed whole aisles of supermarkets from neat and tidy to complete mayhem in just a few seconds. The reporter in the helicopter that now hovered inland over Natori seemed lost for words as the cameraman he was with panned over the rice fields and residential housing areas that had been completely wiped out by the wave. I then overheard a conversation between Ohara-san and a member of his team.

‘This is unbelievable,’ a man dressed in grey overalls said pointing at a computer printout. ‘We’ve just received reports from the Japan Meteorological Agency that the tsunami warning buoy situated off the coast of Sendai transmitted data indicating that the wave reached a height of about ten metres as it passed through. Unless that dissipates we are going to be in a lot of trouble.’

‘Ten metres?’ Ohara-san asked, unable to accept the information that had just been shared with him. ‘Are you sure? That seems unlikely.’

‘Well, that’s what they are reporting,’ Ohara-san’s colleague continued. ‘Much of our monitoring equipment has been destroyed already. That’s why we’ve not been able to get any accurate estimates of the scale of this wave’.

‘We’ve got no choice but to stay here and wait it out,’ Ohara-san said decisively.

I was not sure if hearing this information was a good thing. On one hand it allowed me to get ready for the worst but on the other a part of me would have liked to continue thinking that this was all going to go away. Haruka had moved away from me and was sitting on a chair at the meeting table slowly sipping from a glass of water that someone had given to her. I decided to move back out to the balcony.

In the time that I had been away, which could not have been more than a few minutes, the water levels had risen up to the second floor and was flowing fairly quickly around, and through, the building.

‘Right, everybody,’ Kinoshita-sensei said. ‘It’s becoming too dangerous for you to be out here so I want you all to move inside as quickly as possible.’

Along with my classmates, I went inside and Kinoshita-sensei shut the sliding door behind us. I could hear the water flowing through the building on the floor below together with a series of crashes as whatever furniture was in the rooms got picked up and thrown about before the sea continued on its journey out through windows on the other side that smashed open with the force. I looked across the room and saw groups of students now crouched on the floor huddling together for comfort. We were stuck in this building hoping that the water would stop and that three floors up we would remain safe. I moved across the room to join Haruka at the meeting table and sat down next to her.

‘It’s OK, Haruka-chan,’ I said. ‘We’re going to be fine. There is no way that the water can rise up another floor. I’m sure that it is going to stop soon.’

‘Thanks Kimiko-chan,’ Haruka said. ‘I just don’t know what to do other than sit here and pray. Surely this isn’t it? Look at everyone, we’re only ten years old. Hiroshi and Hiroki are enough. Are we all going to die?’

At this Haruka broke down again, tears flooding down her face and this set off others in the room. It was too late to panic now, all we could do was sit and wait.

‘Don’t say that,’ I replied trying to forget the conversation I had overheard just moments earlier. ‘We’re going to be OK.’

As Haruka continued to weep on my shoulder, I heard an almighty bang from outside as something crashed into the side of the building.

***

From his position at the top of the pine tree, Shoichi was able to see the disaster scene as it unfolded. All the time he worried that he would hear a crack as the trunk of the tree that cradled his life in its branches snapped and he would be plunged into the swirling water below. However, there was almost an air of peace as he watched on, completely helpless at this stage to do anything but play the role of the passive observer, the spectator in the tree. 

Despite the abundance of seawater, all the sounds were of man-made things, nothing organic, as metal ships ground into metal warehouses and cars horns let out cries for help as they were lifted along in the current twisting off buildings that they hit on their way towards a yet unknown final destination.

It was in the lull between these sounds that he heard an almighty bang and then what he thought were screams coming from the port office. If it were not for the water smashing and then pouring out of the windows like a sieve, the building may well have muffled these noises but he had a feeling that there was someone in there.

‘Haruka!’ he shouted, speculatively. ‘Haruka!’Shoichi was not expecting a reply but nonetheless wanted her to know that he was there for her; if she believed she was alone then he wanted her to know that she was not. His attention was then drawn to a small fishing boat that had bounced its way through buildings rather like a ball bearing in a pachinko machine and looked like it might by heading towards his tree. It was not travelling at any great pace and seemed to be dragging something underwater, possibly its anchor, but Shoichi was aware that the weight of the water pushing the boat could be the combination of forces that would topple the tree.

In his mind, he rushed down to the level of the water and waited for the boat to arrive before gently absorbing the force with his legs and pushing it away. In reality, he stared at the boat and willed it to change its course. As it got closer and closer, Shoichi closed his eyes, hunched his shoulders and braced himself for the impact. The boat did strike the trunk but fortunately it was only a passing blow which, although causing Shoichi to lose grip with his right hand, did not dislodge him completely. More importantly, and to his relief, the tree was left undamaged.

Seagulls continued to circle in the sky above him watching the tsunami with interest.