 This month’s tragic events in Japan, triggered by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami, have shocked people around the world. The sheer scale of the catastrophe and loss of life cannot fail to have moved even the most hardened of observers, and countless organisations and individuals have been busy raising funds for the relief effort. Japanese officials have estimated it will cost as much as 25 trillion yen (US$309bn) to rebuild the country after the disaster. As fears of a nuclear fallout from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant spread in the days following the quake, residents and workers fled Tokyo in their thousands, many expatriates returning to the safety of their home countries. But as many international lawyers were fleeing the Japanese capital, one English barrister was heading into the danger zone on a mission to reach his family and get them out. Matthew Seligman, of London based Steel & Shamash Solicitors, didn’t hesitate to make the daunting journey to Tsunami-hit Sendai – the city closest to the earthquake’s epicentre – to be with his wife, Hiromi, nine year old daughter Daisy, and ‘Shark’ and ‘Dolphin’, their two cats. Matthew, who is also an internationally acclaimed musician, kept his Facebook friends updated with his progress, and has kindly allowed ASIAN-MENA COUNSEL to share abridged highlights of his courageous journey with the in-house community. |
Earth quake hits Northern Japan at 2.46pm local time on Friday 11th March; Matthew Seligman is in London, 9 hours behind
Saturday,12 March 02:52
Thanks for all the kind messages I haven’t got through to Sendai yet but friends in Iwadeyama were ok this morning. I’ll put something up here when I speak to Hiromi or Daisy
12 March at 10:59
OK! Thank you all for praying! This from Hiromi: “Hi, we are ok..Can’t connect Internet till now… No electricity, gas water yet. but don’t worry, we survived.”
12 March at 12:06
Having checked Hiromi and Daisy OK, now trying to establish whether the house and 2 cats made it, have a feeling the first of those might not have! The Plan – should be able to get into Sendai day after tomorrow, going a roundabout route via Niigata, taking a backpack with food and masks…electricity back on, water on in parts….one of the cats has given blood to the other (“Iluka (Dolphin) is sharing his blood with Same (Shark)”) and Same has started to recover and is eating….
Kelley XXXX, a Facebook Friend – 13 March at 23:15
Update: Matthew has arrived in Tokyo.We are just emailing now ,making preparation list of things he will need to bring with him. Looks like he might have a domestic flight to get him close to Sendia tomorrow. He is receiving some solid advice from friends of mine who are relief aid workers.
Matthew Seligman – Monday, 14 March at 11:00
Thanks so much for all the messages, it’s so lovely getting them! Everything fine, am heading north from Tokyo tomorrow if I can find transport. Long queues seems to be main problem, if everyone wasn’t buying everything there’d be plenty to go round! Still amazed ANA let me jump on a plane without a ticket, will fly with them the rest of my life to say thankyou…..!
Tuesday, 15 March at 06:33
Luckily, as an Englishman in Tokyo, I came prepared and brought an umberella. It says “I to 3 rain”. This might not go down too well, though, as the rain is what people are worrying about right now after the explosions – what goes up must come down. This is the best reason maybe to evacuate, because once that stuff gets into the fish/fields/food chain, we are in for the long one….meanwhile, buying tickets north today, then off shopping for a backpack full of “soft ramen” which is the preferred survival food, which is why it is sold out… You must all be going through hell just watching this on TV. It’s why I couldn’t stay behind, so I’m actually just really happy to be here and got a bus ticket into Sendai tomorrow feels like a miracle. Have done a lot of shopping, blatantly disregarding the next paragraph, which is just not true! (certainly not in Sendai)
Facebook Japan gives us these updates from the government. Today’s is: “Please refrain from over-stocking supplies. Food and supplies are selling out from the stores in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, however this may cause in running short of supplies for the worst stricken areas. Japanese government has announced that there are enough supplies in stock. Please act calmly with patience.” Be nice to get more details about the radiation levels from the same source too!
Am leaving early tomorrow, flying on the wings of love. Evacuation seems the order of the day, but I won’t make up my mind till I get there and talk to them. Really reluctant to “do a runner” in some ways, but equally, once that stuff has leaked, it stays leaked doesn’t it? Just buying tickets and food today “cost” me 2 X-rays, so I am told.
Wednesday, 16 March at 19.21
Reflections while at Tokyo Station. Amazing 3 days. Friday was the earthquake in our home town of Sendai, Saturday jumped on a plane without a ticket at Heathrow, never to be forgotten goodbyes, then here in Tokyo since Sunday, to work out how to get north. Now its Wednesday, and I’m doing that, sitting on a crowded Shinkansen leaving for Niigata, where I’ll catch the bus into Sendai tonight.
Back home, our small Raymond Chandler basement human rights office at Steel & Shamash, coping with my sudden disappearance, move all my cases onto other desks, messages of love from all floors of that cranky old building, whilst a combination of family, sister Nicky plus Jen and even Steve at Natwest got three grand into my account to fund tickets home, and all in all since Yen and Andy took me out on Friday evening and kept me laughing like good friends can, a mega-support effort is underway.
When I left London, the mission was simple. Just to get here. It had been the biggest earthquake ever to hit Japan and I just wanted Daisy always to remember that Daddy came. Daisy is nine and our one and only. And Hiromi is my wife. (See profile picture). I was the hug postman, that’s all, and a letter from Haruto too. Not so simple now.
Everyone says I have to bring them home. And since the nuclear reactors at Fukushima 80 km away started threatening to meltdown, and spewing radiation all over the place whilst they were thinking about it, they might be right. It’s one x-ray an hour when you go out. So I can see, looking from the sidelines, that it’s obvious you get off the tracks if a runaway train is headed your way. And I need to get back for my clients, everyone one of whom is in trouble and depending on me.
But Sendai is our home. And if Daisy leaves now, that is scarier for everyone else, her classmates who can’t leave. I don’t want to see the fear in their eyes as they wave goodbye, their parents trying not to explain why Daisy is really leaving. But the radiation seeping out of the sky will poison the earth and the sea around there for a generation. Its cost me 3 or 4 x-rays just to get to Sendsi. The small patch of land we have, Daisy’s house, maybe it’s something for her kids, but nothing to use till the blight is over. We have 48-72 hours to decide whether the quite extreme things we are hearing are really the way it is.
The Shinkansen is halfway to Niigata now – in the long tunnel that leads out into ‘Snow Country’ – and although I don’t drink much anymore, I have bought an Asahi. Because a beer and a window seat on a rocket train through this stunning volcanic countryside is one of life’s moments. Japan is full of them.
16 March at 21.00
At Niigata bus station. Four hours to wait here. A bit of “querying” things never goes down well in Japan. This affects trying to get on an earlier bus (failed) and asking for more bags at the supermarket (failed). Oliver Twist would not have done well here. I remind myself that the word for “different” and the word for “wrong” is the same word here – (can’t guarantee the spelling!). But I mean nothing bad by that, I love Japan, just the way it is. And on the positive side, at least passive smoking in public places is alive and well and prospering here, so I am getting a lungful as I write this in the bus station cafe!
It is so unfair of all countries that earthquakes should happen to Japan, because they hate a mess. The whole country is tidying up now. Meanwhile, everyone is saying a thousand people died but we all know it’s twenty times that. Whole towns were washed away, it’s an unbelievably sad huge tragedy.
16 March at 23:41
It’d be totally missing the point to grumble about any of this – Japan is what it is – and it’s pretty amazing they have buses going in at all less than a week after the quake through a radiation cloud, I don’t quite think that would happen out west. I like a country where buses will drive through aftershocks and luminous snow to get you home.
Wonder if I am beginning to get a bit of a headache though, as I chalk up my tenth x-ray…. could be my imagination? … Radio-paranoia could be not a good way to deal with all this. Seems all we can do is keep Daisy indoors and pray for wind. Unfortunately what we have at the moment is snow. But these buses don’t stop for anything. Through the night, the snowghosts, and the broken hearts. Returning to Sendai Snowghosts still swirling around us as the bus’s trusty headlights hack a path through the night to Sendai. It’s -5 out there. Those traffic lights are green (midori) but they call them blue (ao) here. No arguing now.
Thursday 17 March at 05.02
I’m here….coach delayed but got in soon after midnight in a blizzard, some wrong turns as the route was improvised, but wow, fighting through the aftershocks, I LOVE that bus company!….major damage in places, almost none in others….some very sad sad stories, and missing friends…. it’s tens of thousands……but where my family is, unscathed, perhaps one of the most relaxed places in Japan right now, or is that the “infodampdown” doing its job?…built on strong rock near the temple…so could be we were lucky, or fortunate… We will sit tight and discuss things for a couple of days, the wind is blowing in the right direction for now.
Have had a lovely hug from Daisy….she says when all the kids got under their desks the teacher was so brave, stayed vertical, looking out over the whole class….fancy holding your nerve like that through a five minute quake…Sendai very calm where we are, but that is the injustice of this, some areas virtually undamaged, others by the sea wiped out, terrible sadness in friends voices on the phone…. Phoned Koji. He didn’t understand, but he didn’t laugh either. Hard times. He said no-one’s heard from Endo since the quake – he lives near Ishinomaki, on the coast. He’s a blues guitarist. We had a rock blues band called ‘Milk’ together – the new ‘Cream’. Didn’t go sour, more just clouds in the coffee. Will try to get in touch.Endo if you read this, please do.
17 March at 07:22
We are booked on the midday British Embassy bus out of Sendai down to Tokyo…
Friday, 18 March 03:14
Me, Hiromi, Daisy and the two cats reached Tokyo from Sendai at 2am this morning. The evacuation is on track….its looking good, but still ready for anything…..trying to find a little iodine for breakfast.
18 March at 08:40
Tempted to say ‘nearly home now’. Just one crazy week, and back to work. Very mixed feelings, leaving friends behind in Sendai yesterday. I asked our new neighbours, the twins from Daisy’s year at school, if they had anywhere to go: “No, just stay here” they said. But once friends online pointed me to the British Embassy bus leaving Sendai at noon yesterday, that seemed such an easy solution to about 10 different 50:50 questions. The main danger here is not the earthquake or the power station meltdown, but just a human one – panic – and that is what I fear most if there is any kind of ‘headline’ development, in a big, beleaguered city of 1 million. Even though my underlying feeling is things will not get any more out of control than they are now – there is just no way of knowing. And from inside Sendai, despite the fact that it is the calmest place in Japan/the world right now, it was easy to understand how things might feel different if suddenly there were shortages combined with no way out. So we got the embassy bus, and after a pretty easy/pleasant 12 hours driving down to Tokyo via Niigata, we are in Tokyo now, waiting (we are told) for a plane out to Hong Kong, then London. Hopefully today.
The cats, however, are not here. They scored a bullseye with their accommodation, which was overnight at the British Embassy as the hotel wouldn’t let them in. At one motorway stopover, the embassy staff on the bus called me aside for “a word” about the cats and revealed there was a problem, as the hotel was not accepting them. “However, we have a contingency plan” Steve said. And that was the embassy, as government satellite phones buzzed ahead of us to sort out their reception. Hiromi’s cousin Eiji will pick them up later, and look after them till we can work out what their next move is. Meanwhile, Hiromi and Daisy are really looking forward to seeing friends and family in London, and we’ll take it from there. Meanwhile, my desk is beckoning!
The content was taken from Matthew’s Facebook entries.
