What started as the "Quakebook," now titled "2:46" after the time the earthquake hit, originated in a shower in Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, a week after the earthquake and tsunami devastated the Pacific coast of northern Honshu. A longtime British resident of Japan, who blogs as Our Man in Abiko, trying to think of ways in which he might help survivors, decided he could put his experience as a former journalist to work compiling an anthology of earthquake and tsunami experiences, written by Japan residents.
Via social media platform Twitter, he wrote, "If everyone wrote 250 words — one page — or submitted their favourite (original) tweets, pics or artwork, I could edit, publish it in days." The proceeds, he added, would all go to the Japan Red Cross Society. That was at 9:13 a.m. on March 18.
In the book's introduction, Our Man in Abiko writes, "This book was conceived one week after the quake. It was written, edited and completed in seven days to tell people's stories while their feelings were raw, memories fresh and futures so uncertain.