British ex-pats tell of moment disaster struck

At least 1,600 people died when Friday’s tsunami swept across coastal communities and 10,000 are still missing.

As the grim clean-up operation begins, in the heart of Tokyo many have already packed their belongings and headed to the airport.

Leeds man John Kelly is not one of them. The manager at a teaching school in the capital left Yorkshire for Japan 10 years ago. He is now settled there with his wife and young family and while aftershocks continue to shake the city there is he says a calm acceptance among those who have decided to stay.

“I was talking to a friend yesterday when we felt yet another aftershock,” he says. “Before last week whenever an alarm sounded we stopped what we were doing and waited for it to pass. Now we’ve become used to the ground shaking. I know it’s only been a few days, but it’s almost become part of our everyday lives.”

Japan’s major cities were built to withstand earthquakes, even one measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale. What no one was prepared for was the scale of the tsunami which laid waste entire communities.

“Like everyone we’ve been watching the television footage,” says 36-year-old John. “When you’re in Tokyo it’s hard to comprehend that just a couple of hundred miles up the road everything has been wiped out. I guess we feel lucky. My wife was at home with our young baby daughter Maya and my son Taiga was at nursery when the earthquake hit. Of course it affects you, since it happened Taiga gets visibly worried if he is left in a room on his own even just for a few minutes, but what can you do?

“The company where I work provides teaching assistants across Japan. We have responsibility for an awful lot of people so you have to do your job, you have to try to get back to normal.”

Like many of the ex-pats living out in Japan, John has received a constant stream of telephone calls and emails from family and friends back home and he and his wife Yuri are keeping one eye on the internet for earthquake alerts.

The Japanese meteorological agency has warned that in the next two days there is a 70 per cent possibility of a tremor greater than 7.0 and while the tsunami warning has been lifted, experts have cautioned that aftershocks could cause further waves.

“If the earthquake had hit a Third World country everything would have come to a complete standstill, but Tokyo is a pretty resilient city,” adds John.

“The train services have been reduced, so I’ve been cycling into work, and various neighbourhoods have had power cuts, but honestly you could walk through the centre of the city and not know that there was anything wrong. It’s much worse for my family at home because all they see is the reports about explosions at the nuclear site and pictures of entire villages razed to the ground.

“When something like this happens, it is really unnerving and there has been a lot of panic buying going on. But my family is safe, there’s three cartons of milk in the fridge and we’ve got enough food. At least for now we are just keeping calm and carrying on.”

Other Britons have had lucky escapes from the disaster and their stories are now starting to emerge.

Paul Harris, 54, from Birmingham, was giving a private English lesson in a department store in Sendai when the quake struck.

He was ushered down to the basement, which probably saved his life. But he did not stay there long. His mother Daphne Harris, 82, said he ventured out after only a few hours to make sure his partner, Kayoko, was safe.

“He wanted to contact his partner so he left the department store basement and returned to their apartment, which is up a mountain in Sendai,” she said.

“Everything in the house that could come down had come down, but Kayoko survived by sheltering under the table.”

Mrs Harris was overjoyed at the good news. “A cloud has been hanging over us and now it’s been lifted,” she said.

Another British English teacher from Birmingham, Brian Hickebottom, 34, survived by taking refuge in his school where he works, with his wife Sanae, 37. They have a baby daughter Erin, five months.

News of his safety was greeted with huge relief by his family, who had been told he was dead.