Glad to know the friends are safe....

Finally I managed to speak to Sayuri and Susantha ayya today. There are safe and sound away from their home. They live in Saithama, a city close to Tokyo, but have gone to southern area of the country for skating while the earthquake took place. They are now stuck there as the trains are not operating. She said that they felt the earthquake but no major damages to that area. According to her, some parts of the country near the capital, is suffering from no electricity or water due to the situation. She still doesn’t know what has happened to her house in Saithama. Hope everything will be safe with them and all the citizens out there in Japan. I sent a message to all our gang via facebook informing that Sayuri and family are safe. I knew that all my other friends are worried as well.

Further, I spoke to Thamali one of my friend from uni who is now in Japan. Happy to know that she is safe too.   She was very scared and told me that she thought she might die yesterday. the thing is we Sri Lankans have no major experience in earthquakes and I have never even felt a minor one in my life. So this is a total new experience for a Sri Lankan who is there.

We cannot predict the Nature

Another weekend has come. I couldn’t have a proper sleep for the whole week. So after a very long nap on Thursday night, I got up around 12.30pm on Friday with the breath taking news of the Tsunami. After the magnitude 8.9 earthquake in the sea near Japan, 10 meter huge tidal waves have hit the country. It took my mind to the 2004 tsunami devastation in Sri Lanka. What an unpleasant time was that…

While watching Al Jazeera and CNN, I tried so many times to contact Sayuri who lives in Japan. I was so worried as there was no way to know whether her family is safe. After couple of hours we heard that the waves hit Philippines, Hawaii and US main land resulting no major damages. The death toll was to rise up to 1300 by today, the Saturday according to Al Jazeera.

This was the 7^th most powerful earthquake in the recorded history and the worst in Japanese history. I think fortunately the death count was low comparing to 2004 incident due to the proper communication and evacuate system in Japan. What happened back there in Sri Lanka was that we were not aware of tsunami as it was completely new to us. That was the first time in most of the Sri Lankans ever heard the word tsunami including me. So people were so excited to go and experience the sudden change of the sea rather than going away from it. I think every Sri Lankan lost either a friend or a relative in 2004 tsunami. The whole country was like one funeral that time.

One bullet train is reported to be missing in Japan. This is exactly as what happened in Thelwaththa in 2004. I remember the story of how one my cousin sister had a narrow escape from that incident with her child while her husband is still missing.

One of the main issues now Japan is facing is the possible nuclear radiation which might occur due to the failure of the cooling systems in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. An explosion has occurred in on of the plants and Al Jazeera was sowing the white smoke coming out of the plant. The media are talking about the possible results of a nuclear radiation which terrifies the whole world.

You might be in Japan, Hawaii or New Zealand, our hearts are with you... May the world be safe and united for the benefit of all the global citizens...