At the Sharpe End (earthquake description)
Hugh Ashton
Published by j-views at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Hugh Ashton
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Introduction
This was written as the original tipping point for the final part of At the Sharpe End. When I had finished the book, the earthquake had not occurred, but the Lehman crisis had taken place, so I rewrote the book to take account of the Lehman crisis. With the recent Japanese mega-quake, I decided to release these chapters to show how I viewed a large quake in Japan about four years ago. Any money you care to donate will be passed to a suitable quake victim relief fund.
Tuesday, Tokyo
The next day, Sharpe was on the telephone talking to Kim about Barclay, when things started to happen.
“Please don’t have your man follow me today. I’m sure that Barclay will foul up the deal if he feels that he’s being watched,” he began, when a familiar sickening feeling started. “Uh-oh, earthquake,” he said to Kim.
“Yes, I felt it too, a few seconds ago,” said Kim. “I’m down in Yokohama at the moment. I think we’re getting it down here first.” There were loud crashes and banging noises from the other end of the line.
“Are you all right?” asked Sharpe.
“Yes. Hang on. Big one coming your way,” said Kim briefly. As he finished speaking to Sharpe, the floor shook violently up and down, which Sharpe had been told was the sign of a really serious earthquake, as opposed to the usual side-to-side shaking. He actually felt himself being thrown a couple of centimetres off the floor as the lights in the room went out, and the shaking continued what seemed like hours, but was only thirty seconds, as Sharpe found out later from the reports in the media.
Shrieks from Meema’s room, where Mieko was also sitting at the moment
“Hello? Hello?” Sharpe called into the phone, but there was no answer. The line seemed to have gone dead, He dropped the phone and rushed into the trading room. Meema was sitting, transfixed and rigid, staring blankly at the black computer screen.
“I knew we should have put in a UPS,” said Vishal, pointing to the blank screens.
“And what good would an uninterruptible power supply do in a situation like this, then?” snapped Sharpe. “The whole bloody city’s probably dead in the water.” He crossed over to Mieko, who was shivering with fear, and put his arms round her. Vishal did the same for Meema, who seemed the most frightened of all of them.
“It’s all right, that’s the worst of it over,” calmed Sharpe. He had no way of knowing whether that was true or not, but Mieko relaxed a little in his arms.
“That was a bad one,” said Meema, still shaking.
“It was the worst I’ve ever been in,” Mieko said. “I guess that was about a five or six.” The Japanese scale of reporting earthquake intensity focuses on the perception of the earthquake at the point where it is experienced, rather than the intensity of the earthquake itself at the source. It’s an open-ended scale, but the earthquake that destroyed Kobe in 1995 was regarded as a 7+. Any earthquakes about a three are reported on TV instantly.
“Scared the shit out of me,” admitted Sharpe. “Fucking hell!” His sudden obscenity was caused by the floor heaving once again. More things started to fall off shelves, jumping off as if they were alive -- big things that Sharpe would never have believed could fall. There was a crash in the next room as something large and heavy fell over, and one of Meema’s large computer screens toppled to the floor next to Sharpe.
“Bloody hell!” said Vishal. “Those things are expensive and tricky to get hold of.” Despite himself, Sharpe was quietly amused at Vishal’s sense of priorities.
“Get me out of here,” Meema whimpered.
“You’re right, Meema,” said Sharpe. “We shouldn’t be here. To the toilet.”
“What?” said Vishal, who hadn’t heard this piece of Japanese earthquake folklore.
“The corners of the small room will form a rigid box. Even if the rest of the building collapses, we’ll be safe.” The building was creaking ominously now. The vertical jolting had finished, but there were still aftershocks, which were themselves as strong as many earthquakes that Sharpe had experienced in the past. The four of them crammed into the toilet. Meema and Mieko sat on the toilet itself with their arms around each other, and Vishal and Sharpe stood beside them, grinning a little shamefacedly.
They listened to the creaking of the building around them in silence.
Suddenly Meema spoke. “I think I just wet myself,” she confessed.
“Don’t worry,” said Mieko, taking her hand and holding it firmly. “I did that a long time ago. I just hoped no-one would notice.”
“Hey!” said Vishal. “I think things are getting a bit quieter.” They listened carefully. There were sirens in the distance, and the noise of someone speaking over the ubiquitous public announcement system in the streets. Sharpe strained his ears, but his Japanese wasn’t up to catching the words.
“There’s been an earthquake,” Mieko translated for them. (Meema started to giggle hysterically. “Tell us something we didn’t know,” she said. “Quiet,” hissed Vishal.) “Its centre was near Shizuoka, and it was over a seven in strength.” (”Bloody hell,” said Sharpe.) “No danger of tsunami, but aftershocks are expected. If your building is damaged, go to the nearest emergency centre which is the number 2 elementary school. More information available later.”
“I wonder what’s on TV?” asked Sharpe.
“No electricity,” Vishal reminded him.
“I know,” Sharpe said, pulling out his mobile phone. “I changed phones recently. This has a TV tuner in it.”
They watched in silence, but NHK had little more concrete news to give, except that a lot of damage seemed to be centred around a place called Omaezaki in Shizuoka prefecture and that Yokohama and the surrounding areas had reported suffering extensive damage.
“That’s almost certainly going to block the all main roads, and the expressway and the railway lines between Tokyo and Osaka,” pointed out Sharpe. “It’ll bugger up the whole country for some time to come.”
“There’s a back way through the mountains,” Mieko pointed out.
“Yes, of course, but the bulk of all the traffic goes along the coast past the earthquake site. The bullet trains won’t be running for at least a month, I bet you, and I’m sure at least some of the tunnels on the expressway are going to be unsafe as well, if they’re not actually blocked.” The four of them stood in silence for a while as the aftershocks continued, and further crashes and bangs were heard in the other rooms.
“I’m calling my parents,” Mieko announced, and pulled out her mobile phone, covering her mouth with her hand as she spoke softly into the mouthpiece. A few minutes later, she put the phone back into her bag. “They’re all right,” she informed Sharpe. “Dad says that all his bonsai have fallen over, but he and Mum are all right.”
Sharpe suddenly remembered a magazine article he had written some time previously. “Holy shit!” he swore.
“What?” asked Mieko.
“The stupid bastards have put a nuclear power station at Hamaoka near Omaezaki -- right over an earthquake fault line. This is going to make Chernobyl look trivial.”
“You’re joking?” asked Vishal.
“I wish I was. This could be truly terrible, depending on which way the wind’s blowing.”
“They always claim that the power stations are totally safe,” ventured Mieko.
“They said that about the Titanic, too,” countered Sharpe. “More to the point, they said that about the Kobe expressways that collapsed.” The silence returned, with an added chill.
“They’ll let us know if anything’s wrong, won’t they?” said Mieko.
“I doubt it, I’m afraid,” said Sharpe. “If you remember that accident in Tokaimura some time ago, when those workers nearly caused a nuclear meltdown through their incompetence and ignorance, the government was really quiet about the danger. They don’t give a damn except about their own pockets.”
“You’re always criticising Japan,” complained Mieko.
“With good reason,” retorted Sharpe. “The politicians here are a bunch of crooked no-good incompetents.”
“And how is that any different from America?” shot back Mieko.
“I never claimed America was perfect. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m British in any case.”
“Will you two be quiet?” said Vishal. “It’s not helping anything, you know.”
Sharpe and Mieko both apologised to the other two and to each other, and went quiet. After about ten minutes, when no further shocks had occurred, Vishal suggested that they leave the cramped safety of the toilet.
The place, to put it mildly, was a mess. Everything which had been on a shelf seemed to have fallen from its place. Meema’s workstation screens had all toppled over, and her kitchen area was a mess. Turmeric seemed to have spilled everywhere, turning everything yellow. One windowpane seemed to have fallen from its frame, and two others were cracked.
Sharpe clicked the light switches. Nothing.
“I don’t think we can expect any power for a few days,” said Vishal. “Listen, though.”
They listened. The usually bustling city of Tokyo seemed like a ghost town -- there was almost no sound in the streets outside. In the distance, sirens wailed. The loudspeakers started up again.
“They’re telling us to drink only bottled water,” said Mieko.
“That would be a good idea, if we had some,” said Vishal.
“I’ll get some, and some other stuff,” said Sharpe. “I’m betting that the convenience stores will be open again soon, if they’re not already.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Vishal. “I know this is Tokyo and we’re probably safe, but I think two are safer than one here. We don’t know what’s going to happen in an emergency, or how people will react.”
“Thanks,” said Sharpe. He turned to Mieko and Meema. “Lock the door behind us, and don’t open it up to anyone, unless you know it’s us.”
Sharpe and Vishal went out, taking some plastic carrier bags with them in anticipation, and expecting the worst. They were pleasantly surprised. The streets were nearly empty, and the few people they met greeted them with expressions of solicitude, even apology that foreigners as guests to Japan should have been exposed to such a terrible thing. Despite the damage within the office space, the streets showed remarkably few signs of the recent upheaval. Here and there glass had fallen from windows above, covering the street wish shiny glittering particles. In one place, there was a crack across the width of the road, from which water was spurting as the result of a burst main. There was, of course, no electricity, and very few cars were moving. The train crossing at the end of the road was closed, with the barriers down.
“Why?” Vishal asked, as they squeezed under the barriers and walked across the deserted tracks.
“To stop ambulances and fire engines and hinder rescue efforts?” suggested Sharpe sarcastically.
“That’s a mercy, anyway,” remarked Vishal. “There are no fires, anyway. Not in this part of Tokyo that I can see.”
“I suppose we should be thankful that this didn’t happen at a time when everyone was cooking and the gas stoves were lit,” commented Sharpe. “Though it does seem as though we’ve come through it fairly well here.” Just then his mobile phone rang.
“Are you safe?” said Barclay.
“You’re not asking for your money after all this, are you?” asked Sharpe incredulously.
“Au contraire, dear boy, that’s just what I was calling about. Let us postpone our little arrangement until things have quietened down a bit, shall we? I doubt if I could get over and meet you in any case, and it’s not very nice to see everyone else in the same sort of temporary boat as myself was, to be honest. I’d feel a bit of a bastard, you know, taking toys from a blind baby, or whatever the phrase is.”
“What are things like on your side of town?” asked Sharpe.
“Bloody grim, to be frank. Some of the older buildings have collapsed, and I’m trying to organise some of the local lads to dig out some of the old folks trapped there. We’d welcome another pair of hands, but I’m sure you have your own worries.” He rang off.
“What the hell was that?” asked Vishal.
“Someone I’d written off completely as a selfish bastard, who’s spending his time digging old folk out of the rubble.” Sharpe shook his head. The complexities of human nature left him sadly perplexed at times.
When they reached the convenience store, an orderly line had already formed. The staff were calmly dispensing rice balls and bottles of water, and not charging for them, though they were accepting money for other items. Since the area was primarily a business area, most of the customers were dressed for business, and were obviously some way from their homes. There were very few families or children in the store. “They always say that disasters bring out the best in people. I never really believed it,” said Sharpe.
He and Vishal returned to the office, laden with bottled water, some of the rice-balls, and a collection of assorted foods which would last a few days and which didn’t need cooking. Sharpe had insisted on handing over money for all of these, over the protests of the shop staff, and they had compromised by taking the money for the water and rice balls separately and stuffing it into a Red Cross collecting box.
Meema and Mieko let them in. “Quiet?” asked Sharpe.
“Not a soul,” replied Mieko. “I’m really surprised how quiet everything is. Is it bad out there?”
“Not nearly as bad as we feared,” replied Sharpe. “I wonder how Kim is getting on? He was down in Yokohama. I was talking to him when the earthquake hit.” He dialled Kim’s mobile number. He had to try several times, as all the circuits seemed to be jammed, but on the fourth try he made a connection. After about ten rings, a strange voice answered in Japanese.
“Mr. Kim, please,” Sharpe requested in Japanese.
“Sorry, he died in the earthquake,” said the voice. “A falling tile from the roof hit him on the head as he went outside to look at the house, and he was killed almost instantly. You are Mr. Sharpe?”
They must know from the caller ID on the mobile phone, Sharpe thought. “Yes, I am.”
“You and your friends are all right?”
“We are, thank you for asking. And you?”
“It’s terrible here in Yokohama, but apart from Mr. Kim, we are all unhurt.”
“I’m really sorry to hear about Mr. Kim. My sincere condolences to you all,” Sharpe replied.
“Thank you. Good-bye.”
Sharpe slumped into one of the chairs. “Kim’s dead,” he told the others.
“What?” said Meema, astonished.
“Died in the earthquake. That was one of his goons I was talking to. It seems he went outside to look at the house and got hit on the head by falling masonry.”
“Dear God,” said Vishal reverently. “He may have been a gangster, but I liked him.”
“So did we all, Vishal,” said Mieko.
“Had he given us his money to invest?” asked Meema.
“It was going to be today. He might well have started the transfer when the earthquake struck, but God alone knows what the Japanese bank computer systems are like when it comes to disaster recovery.”
“Did he have anyone else who he was working with on this?”
“He never mentioned them if he did. I suppose he might have done, but he struck me as the sort of person who kept the details very much to himself. His daughter, maybe, and possibly his son-in-law, Katsuyama, but I think they weren’t on very good terms.”
“So unless we reinvest the money I made the other day, we’re finished as M&M Trading?”
“You’re not risking that money!” said Vishal firmly. “That’s my sister’s life.”
“Only some of it is for your sister,” Meema pointed out.
“We can always get investments from other people,” Sharpe added. “We have the license to do it, after all. If we charge them a commission, then we’ll make money off it, if that’s really what you want to be doing with your life.”
“Can we talk about something else?” said Mieko. “Like the toilet won’t flush, and we’re going to have to work out what to do about that. Let’s face it, we’re not going to be able to go back home for some time, and we’re going to have to live here for a day or so. We have food, thanks to you, but we do have other needs, and you boys are going to have to fix them.”
“Oh God,” groaned Sharpe. “I wish that you'd let us know before we set off, and then we could have bought some large garbage bags or something.”
Suddenly the lights came on, and Meema’s computer hummed back to life. “That was faster than I expected,” commented Vishal, but as he spoke, the lights went off again.
“Better unplug all the computer equipment if they’re going to start playing silly buggers like that,” suggested Sharpe. He and Vishal went through the office putting things straight, and unplugging all the IT equipment as they came to it. As they worked, they experienced a few minor tremors, but nothing like the powerful initial earthquakes or the immediate aftershocks.
“I wonder how the rest of the country’s getting on,” Sharpe remarked to Vishal. He turned on his phone’s TV function and saw pictures of devastation in Yokohama. There were reports that the Landmark Tower there, Japan’s tallest building, had partially collapsed, and that the world-famous statue of the Buddha in Kamakura a little to the south of Yokohama had toppled to the ground, but no pictures were shown to confirm either of these reports. There was, as Sharpe had expected, no news about the nuclear power plant that had given him so much cause for concern.
“Wonder what all this is going to do to the markets?” Vishal wondered aloud.
Funnily enough, Sharpe hadn’t really thought about this angle to any extent up until this time.
“Everyone’s going to be dumping JGBs,” he guessed, referring to Japanese government bonds.
“So buy them,” retorted Vishal. “They’re not going to stay down for long and the market will be flooded with a new short-term low-interest issue which will push up the value of the long-terms. But I think the currency market’s going to be crazy for a long time to come. People are going to be buying and selling yen like there’s no tomorrow. I wonder what’s going to be happening to the US dollar?”
“Why?” Vishal had a lurid imagination when it came to financial matters, but in many cases he was more accurate than the self-styled experts when his predictions were matched to the reality of events.
“Because the Japanese government will be starting to sell all their T-bills they’ve been buying to keep the American economy afloat up to now. They will be needing the ready cash for emergency relief and rebuilding. And once they start unloading, you can bet all your bottom dollars that the Chinese will be starting to do the same. You’ll be able to buy US Treasury bonds for toilet paper.”