When the magnitude 9 megaquake hit northeastern Japan in the early afternoon of Friday, March 11, I was at work in The Japan Times office some 250 km to the south in Tokyo.
As the building here shook, I ran down the emergency stairs fearing for my life and then stood outside watching the high-rises around us swaying. I was absolutely terrified — and it didn't get any better when the tsunami warning screeched out of speakers in the neighborhood.
After running back inside — because the JT office is at sea level on Tokyo Bay — I found the newsroom was in chaos, with quake alarms sounding constantly on people's cellphones and the radio as the first aftershocks started to rattle the country, and TVs all showing horrific live images of the tsunami as our reporters scrambled to make sense of what was happening and get the story out.