Survivors recount experience of Japan’s powerful New Year’s Day earthquake: ‘it was pretty frightening’
- Many described the magnitude-7.6 tremor, which left at least 48 dead and caused considerable destruction, as the biggest one they have ever felt
- ‘It was pretty frightening. But all we can hope for now is that the worst is over,’ said a resident of Toyama City
“I’m 66 years old and that was the biggest quake that I have ever experienced,” said academic Yoichi Shimada, who lives in Fukui City, some 200km southwest of the epicentre of the temblor that struck on Monday evening and triggered a tsunami alert.
“We were in the garden when there was an alert on my son’s mobile phone, but then nothing happened,” Shimada said. “There have been a lot of minor earthquakes on the Noto Peninsula in the last couple of years so we never thought anything of it.”
“Then, a couple of minutes later, there was another alert on his phone and the shaking started a few seconds later.
“It was very powerful and it went on for a long time. It seemed to last far longer than I have felt in the past,” he said.
Shimada added he and his family found it difficult to stand upright while the quake continued, although their home was undamaged.