A town at the edge of the catastrophe

A piece in today’s New York Times supplies vivid first person accounts of the effects of the earthquake and tsunami on the fishing town of Nakaminato located at the edge of the worst-hit area, 155 miles south of Sendai which was destroyed by the tsunami.

Here’s one:

Yukinao Nemoto, a 34-year-old forklift driver, … was loading a boat on Friday afternoon when he noticed the bottom of the forklift suddenly scraping the ground. The reality that the earth was moving took a moment to set in: the forklift hit the ground because the ground beneath it had sunk eight inches.

Mr. Nemoto scanned the water and saw a white line of waves speeding to shore. He jumped off his forklift and ran up a nearby hill, barely beating the waves.

“I just dropped everything and ran,” he said.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 13, 2011 11:47 AM | Send