Japan's survivors: 'So many have been killed. It's hard to sleep. Unimaginable'

Residents of Sendai and Tokyo recall what happened when the disaster struck – and how they survived
A woman cries
A woman cries after learning that her mother was rescued from a building in Miyagi prefecture. Photograph: Kyodo/Reuters

Koichi Takairin

Truck driver, 34, from Sendai

Inside his four-tonne vehicle when the wave struck Sendai, he said that the tsunami was moving too quickly to consider outpacing it so he took the gamble of sitting tight in his truck as a tide of debris – which included entire homes, cars and trees – swept past him.

"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," he said. "Smaller cars were being swept around me. All I could do was sit in my truck." The vehicle was largely destroyed in the resulting chaos.

Hours later, as the waters began to recede, Takairin left the wreckage of his truck to join the column of survivors who were walking along the road away from the Pacific coastline and towards the shattered city.

Blaise Plant

Member of rock band Monkey Majik, 30, from Sendai

Tweeted throughout the night after the earthquake hit. "Just walked outside, completely different feel from last night… lights on all over the city… very calm… still getting tremors… the whole city smells like fire! You can see the smoke from the gas plant down the road," read his posts. Later, they continue: "Keeping positive, but so many people have been injured, or killed." The aftershocks were continuing: "We have gotten used to the tremors, but once in a while we get a lil jump out of our seats, but all in all, we have everything we need."

Graeme Melvin

Teacher from Edinburgh, 28, working in Tokyo

Was working in his office in the Kagurazaka district when he felt the first tremors. "When it continued for over two minutes, I began to feel a little nervous. Very suddenly the strength of the earthquake increased dramatically; the entire room was shaking violently. I was struggling to keep my chair, with me in it, from falling over," he said. It was then that a friend burst into the room screaming at him to leave the building immediately. "Computers were falling off desks, chairs were being thrown over. As we made it outside into the huge car park, we turned to see the building literally moving from side to side, with the glass windows rattling as if being pounded by hurricane winds. Luckily, no one was hurt but several people were crying and everyone was totally shocked after what seemed like 10 minutes of shaking finally stopped."

Satako Yusawa

69, from Sendai

Was having a cup of tea at a friend's house when the earthquake began. "We were desperately trying to hold the furniture up, but the shaking was so fierce that we just panicked." Her son had just borrowed a large amount of money to build a dream house, she said, and his family moved in several weeks ago. Yesterday, she could not find any trace of the house, or even where it used to stand. Luckily, she said, her son was away when the disaster struck. In tears, she surveyed the devastation: "This is life."

Naomi Ishizawa

Mobile-phone sales executive, 24, from Sendai

Was at work when the quake struck in mid-afternoon. It took her until nightfall to reach her home just outside the city and check on her parents, who were both all right. Although the house was still standing the walls of a bedroom and bathroom had collapsed and rubble littered the interior.

Ishizawa's parents were lucky to survive: the tsunami stopped just short of her residence. Nearby houses were utterly destroyed.

Like many people throughout Japan's north-east, she was still waiting to hear from others in her family: "My uncle and his family live in an area near the shore where there were a lot of deaths. We can't reach them."

Kumi Onodera

Dental technician, 34, from Sendai

Compared the earthquake and aftermath to "a scene from a disaster movie". Described the tremor as being so intense that the ground in Sendai began rippling. "The road was moving up and down like a wave. Things were on fire and it was 'snowing' [debris and ash]." People were trying hard to be positive, she said, but it was difficult. "You come to appreciate what you have in your everyday life. Everything is so hard now."

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