Spring break started as of now and I was planning to use my newfound free time to post about my week. I have some interesting stories about the Pac-10 basketball games, working with football players on the field, and being pulled over (
on a bike
) by an officer. But after seeing the news about the magnitude 8.9 earthquake in Japan, these stories started to seem a bit trivial.
Sadly, I didn't even hear about the earthquake until this morning, about 10 hours after the fact. I woke up this morning, turned on my computer, started surfing Facebook, and saw statuses warning people in Taiwan that they had less than 2 hours to seek refuge on high ground because of a potential tsunami caused by the magnitude 8.9 earthquake in Japan striking Taiwan.
"There was an earthquake?!" I thought.
Sure enough, it was on the front page of Yahoo! News.
An 8.9 earthquake sounds terrifying. Heck, my mother was so shaken by the magnitude 5.4 earthquake which hit Chino Hills in 2008 that she wanted to relocate to a different state!
One of my friends from the athletic medicine program is an international student from Tokyo. She told me that she was on the phone with her mother the entire night because her mom was freaking out. My lab partner is also stranded in Hawaii at the moment because all flights are canceled as a result of the tsunami advisory.
It's really disheartening to see tweets that say "I can't get in touch with my grandparents in Japan" and I truly hope that everything turns out for the better. I remember many years ago when the magnitude 7.3 earthquake (named the 921 Earthquake) struck Taiwan. All of us in America were terrified because we couldn't get a hold on our relatives in Taiwan at the time. Thankfully, everything turned out to be all right.
I'll keep everyone in my prayers.
