January 04, 2005
tsunami
this thing was really bothering me today and yesterday. the immensity of the loss that humanity has suffered is just now becoming clear.
when i went to kobe, i stayed with one of my mom's friends in kobe, who's the wife of the american consulate there (she's japanese, he's american). it's a family of four: the wife, husband, and two kids (college age and younger). they were on vacation in indonesia during the tsunami and survived by what was either freakish luck or a miracle. they were sight-seeing on a set of islands and were taking a ferry boat from one island to the other when it struck. had they taken the ferry that departed a half-hour earlier, they would have made it just in time to be swept away. had they missed the one they got and had to wait a half-hour for the next, they would have been swept away. as it was, they took the only ferry that survived and were stranded in the ocean, unsure of where to go until a coast guard boat picked them up.
they were delivered to a buddhist temple-turned refugee camp where food and shelter were being given to the survivors. just outside the temple, bodies were being brought and piled to be burned (i believe) due to disease.
there was only one phone booth and each person could line up to make a one minute long domestic phone call. they lined up once to call a friend in the country, asking the friend to relay back to japan that they were alive. they lined up a second time to make a phone call to the embassy, which then called the consulate in japan.
the family heard a rumor that their hotel had survived, somehow, and that their possessions may still be intact. so on the way to the airport, the tour bus (they were in a tour group) swung by the hotel. they couldn't get very close to it due to the devastation, so they were forced to walk part of the way. debris was everywhere, most of the buildings smashed down, including the hotel that stood right next to theirs. their hotel had lost part of the bottom floors, but the upper floors where the rooms were remained and they were able to make their way in and retrieve their stuff. the area had lost electricity, of course, so the interior of the hotel was pitchblack, the first floor knee deep in black water. in the water floated not only trash and debris, but bodies they could barely make out in the dark. they pushed their way through it all, retrieved their suitcases, and left.
when i look around me, i find it impossible to imagine such devastation. i watch people go in and out of target. i think about my own petty arguments and disagreements with those i love and those i don't know. i think about how i get frustrated when the metro is crowded. 140,000 people dead. many more to come from disease and famine. my god.