Birthplace:Malaysia
Please describe how the things were when the earthquake occurred.
I was in my apartment on the sixth floor with my roommate when the earthquake occurred. Though I experienced The Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake in 2008 in the first year I was in Japan, there has never been an earthquake in Malaysia and the shaking this time was so stronger than the one before that I was seriously scared.
In early days of my coming to Japan, I learned how we should react when the earthquake would hit in the disaster prevention practice seminar at Sendai International Center in Sendai International Relations Association. That’s why I was able to react rationally; opened the doors and the windows to keep the escape route, hid myself under the table, and then waited until the shaking calmed down. As the shaking calmed down about two minutes later, my room was awful mess with books and other things. The quake finished, I met a Japanese old lady next door on the passage and said to her,“Are you ok? Let’s take shelter together!” Then I carried her on my back and went down the stairs to the apartment hall with my friend.
Then we joined my friends living in another apartment nearby and went to the designated shelter, which was Katahira-cho elementary school. There were about six hundred people, and I stayed there for five days with fifteen international students from Malaysia. Foods and blankets were enough there. However, I found that my neighbors, by whom I had been always taken care of, were not at shelter, so I delivered foods and helped them with cleaning their house.
On the next day after we returned to our apartment from shelter, we got a mail from Malaysia Embassy to take shelter to Tokyo. So on March 17th, we went to Malaysia Embassy in Tokyo by bus that Embassy arranged. After staying at Malaysia Embassy in Tokyo for five days, I wanted to go back to Sendai City, but my host family in Sendai said to me, “I have been worrying about my parents in Minamisoma City. So have your parents about you. Why don’t you temporarily go back to Malaysia and meet them to make them relieve?” With their advice, I temporarily went back to Malaysia.
How did your family at home country react?
Right after the earthquake, I called my family and told I was safe. And at that time, I said to them, “The telephone might not be connected for a while. But I will be alright.” After that, I kept in touch with my family and friends with Facebook by using our mobile phone and uploaded the pictures of the towns and shelters.
And furthermore, when I was thinking of the way to let people widely know about the stricken area, one of my friends in Malaysia started up the blog on this earthquake disaster using the pictures on Facebook. This blog, though it had just started, was accessed by a lot of people all over the world, and I was very happy to hear that.
Leaving Japan for Malaysia temporarily, I was fully sorry for people in Sendai to leave there. That’s why I went back to Malaysia without telling my family in advance that I was on my way to Malaysia. But they were pleased to see my appearance in safe.
The news on TV in Malaysia, however, made me want to go back to Sendai soon.
A lot of the news on the earthquake were exaggerated in Malaysia. My parents were worried about the major nuclear accident as there is no nuclear plant in Malaysia. So I explained them repeatedly those were not so dangerous as the news had reported. While my mother disagreed about my returning to Japan, my father understood me. In addition, the fact that many necessary goods had been sent from Malaysia to people in shelters in Sendai made me decide to go back to Japan and deliver those goods soon and work for people in trouble, then I did.
What kinds of volunteers did you do?
Going back to Sendai, I went to the Cultural Center Mosque where many necessary goods had been sent. There I sorted them out, delivered to shelters, got in contact with people at shelters in Minamisanriku-cho and Natori, and participated in a soup-run and so on.
I am still going to Minamisanriku-cho, which is located ninety kilometers north of Sendai City, to run a soup kitchen in weekends. In a soup kitchen, we cooked and served Malaysian food and Indonesian one. People at shelters were happy with them because the same meals had been served there.
I took part in volunteer activities to work for people and as a return for the kindness I had got from people who had taken good care of me. Visiting the stricken area every week, I was able to see the recovery of towns and people little by little, and I was very glad as if it was me myself.
Please describe what you think about the recovery and reconstruction from this natural disaster.
As I am on job hunting to find employment in Japan now, I was losing the self confidence as it had not going well. I, however, do want to work for the restoration of Japan since I have experienced the earthquake this time and have been participating in volunteer activities.
I will concentrate on my job hunting from now and want to be an aid for the help of the reconstruction of Japan. At the same time, with my own eyes, I want to see the process that Japan, the country which has distinguished technologies in the world, will revive.