Mar 11

Mar 11 Photos from today: Tokyo Earthquake

2011 Earthquake, Tokyo

What a scary day today was for many of us. I was on the 26th of my office building in Shinjuku. I have been in Tokyo for a long time and earthquakes are a part of daily life if you live in Japan but this was the scariest one I have ever been in. Things were flying all over, the giant metal book shelfs were slamming together. It lasted for such a long time and the building was swaying so with much force. Everyone grabbed their helmets. Many hid under their desks. It was scary to look at out see the building all around you moving. You can check out the twitter tab on the left of this page to see some of the details as it unfolded. It took me about 3 hours to walk home tonight. I'll be throwing up those pictures shortly so check back. Thank you to everyone for your calls, SMSs, emails, tweets, etc... communications are spotty here right now and most of my replies have failed. Feel free to leave a message here if you want.

A view out of my office building on the 26th Floor in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.

Piles of change that I had neatly stacked was all over the place.

Books were knocked over....my coat rack actually almost left my office...

People start to pile up. The trains are all shut down and thus begins a mass walking commute for the millions who work in Tokyo.

I had to walk down to the first floor to find the rest of my team. One wasn't back from lunch yet and one went out for a smoke. Smoking might have been good for your health in this instance.

I notice there were paint chips all over the stairs and then noticed that the paint came off all of the weldings on the stairs....

The walls have a ton of cracks in them...

A few of the glass walls on the first floor of our building were shattered....

Groups met outside to account for everyone. A lot of people also stayed inside. This is actually the safest place as our building is strong and you can't get hit from flying debris.