Documenting an earth-shattering event
Japan quake and tsunami yield tales of deep sorrow, great courage - but above all a will to rebuild
When a massive earthquake struck Japan on March 11, 2011, David McNeill and Lucy Birmingham experienced the terrifying sensation of the earth moving uncontrollably beneath their feet. As journalists, they spent much of the immediate aftermath of the nation's most devastating natural disaster in living memory working in the Tohoku region of northeast Japan, returning countless times since.
The resulting book, Strong in the Rain - which takes its title from a poem by Kenji Miyazawa - is a harrowing but compassionate record of some of the people they met on their journeys through communities and countryside once known for being hardy and picturesque.
The book is divided roughly into two narratives, which necessarily overlap. Time correspondent Birmingham has focused on the impact of the magnitude-9 quake and the tsunami that in some areas reached up to 40 metres high. McNeill, who wrote for The Independent and The Irish Times, spent many hours inside the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and covers the crisis that unfolded after the disaster and the impact of the nuclear meltdown. speaks to the co-authors.
I was in Shinagawa Station with Nanako, my pregnant partner, and my first thought was that we were going to die if the roof collapsed. I recall cursing that the quake seemed to go on forever and worrying I'd probably have a heart attack before it ended. And then, as we walked through the station afterwards, I was thinking: "Christ, I'm going to have to cover this and it's not going to be easy. How can I leave my heavily pregnant partner without sparking a huge row?"
I was rewriting a script for the NHK English-language news programme when the building started weaving and groaning. It was terrifying. Everyone jumped under their desks. When the shaking subsided, my thoughts raced to my three children. I called their mobile phones, but no answer. Then I saw a group around a TV screen watching helicopter footage of what looked like a massive wave of black water sucking up everything in its path. I heard the word "tsunami" and then, "Looks like a disaster movie". No-one had ever seen anything like it before.