3-2 Hiro's Story

On March 11, 2011, at 2.46 pm, near the northeastern coast of the country, Japan experienced an undersea earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale. Shortly after, Hiromaru Sasazaki was looking at the damage in his fishing shop in Nikuzen Takata when a tsunami alarm went off. People didn't do anything because two days earlier another alarm went off after an earthquake had turned up waves only 60 centimeters high. This time, however, the alarm gave warning of 3 meter waves. This didn't scare Hiro as his town had a wall along the coast much higher than 3 meters. He decided to go home to his wife. When he arrived, his wife was gone. She had left the apartment. Suddenly, he heard a woman scream from outside and saw a wall of water crash into his apartment building. The tsunami cut the building into two pieces, pulling the second story of the building and Hiro's home into the water. The whole second floor of the apartment began moving away in the water. Below him, the waves were destroying the floor. The strength of the water hitting the floor broke Hiro's leg. Water began to quickly enter through the floor of Hiro's apartment. Luckily, he was able to climb to the roof. While the building was moving with the waves, Hiro noticed a helicopter flying above. He waved to the helicopter, and it soon flew down close to him. But when it flew close to him, Hiro realized the helicopter couldn't help him. It was a television helicopter. It soon flew away. After about 30 minutes of moving with the waves, seeing cars, furniture, and burning homes pass him by, he knew that he was moving towards the ocean and away from land. If he stayed with the home, he would enter the ocean and probably die. It was his last chance. He jumped into the dirty, ice-cold water and tried to swim to land. It was nearly impossible because of his broken leg. Also, while he was swimming, his hands hit objects like wood, furniture, cars, and other things that the water had taken with it. Hiro finally swam to land and went to the top of a hill in his town. He saw that many people had gone there when they heard the tsunami alarm. After a few hours, from a window on the ground floor, he saw his wife Nobuko, who was searching for him. He shouted. She saw him and rushed in. Hiro and Nobuko are now rebuilding their lives as their home and town were both destroyed. It is hard to imagine that they were the lucky ones because the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 caused more than 15,000 deaths. The cost of the damage was 230 billion dollars, making this the most expensive natural disaster in history.