When the ground began to shudder uncontrollably in the world’s busiest train station, we ran for our lives. Andrew Pateras on surviving the record-breaking earthquake in Japan.
Andrew Pateras is a photojournalist. In 2011 he was on assignment in Japan and was in the Toyko train station, the busiest in the world. It was 3:00 in the afternoon and he was surrounded by thousands of people as he stood in line to get a ticket for a bullet train. Just then he felt a slight movement in the ground under his feet. He ignored it. Then a violent shudder went through the station. Things fell to the ground, overhead signs were swaying. An old man next to him smiled and said one word: “Earthquake.”
Andrew ran for the door, about 60 feet away. The ground was shaking so violently that it was difficult to run in a straight line. He said it was like trying to sprint across the deck of a ship being tossed by swells. With a pounding heart he reached the street and headed for a large park surrounded by skyscrapers. Hundred-story buildings swayed like palm trees in the wind. His mind replayed the image of the World Trade Center crashing to the ground.
The noise was incredible. He could hear the buildings creak and groan as they shook in their foundations. He started to shoot photos of everything that was happening. He would find out later that the quake was a magnitude 8.9, the strongest earthquake to hit Japan in recorded history.
Many things can shake our world. It can be natural events like earthquakes or hurricanes, or human events like wars or terrorist attacks. King David said that “though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,” he would not be afraid. He had a God who was a refuge for him. Where would you go when disaster strikes?
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Adapted by David Holwick from Andrew Pateras, “My Earthquake Experience in Tokyo,” March 11, 2011, < http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/03/11/japan-tsunami-my-earthquake-experience-in-tokyo.html >.