When earthquake warnings sent drivers on a Japanese highway scrambling for safety Monday, UMass Boston student Suzu Aoyama was among them.
Aoyama, 20, shared video of the scene and later spoke with 7NEWS about her experience as the 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck.
“Everything was shaking,” she said.
Though she goes to school in Boston, Aoyama was home in Japan on winter break at the time of the earthquake, which has since been followed by a series of other quakes.
“I was in the car and I was going to my home and the ground started to shake and the car was shaking so hard,” she said.
Aoyama is from Matsumoto in central Japan, about 150 miles from the spot where Monday’s tremors began. Her town didn’t suffer much structural damage. Images from communities near the earthquake epicenter, though, showed buildings reduced to rubble, huge cracks in concrete and fires breaking out.
Though the threat of a tsunami from Monday’s earthquake eventually passed, many who live along the coast were previously told to evacuate due to large waves.
“We’re Japanese, so we know what to do when an earthquake comes,” Aoyama said. “So, many people went outside or started to cover their heads or got under a table.”
Monday’s earthquake hit on a day when millions of Japanese people traditionally visit shrines and temples to mark the start of the New Year.
Aoyama said she was “shocked the earthquake happened.”
“–And in the New Year, which is so important to Japanese,” she continued.
When she is attending school in Boston, Aoyama works part-time at a Japanese restaurant in Chinatown.
As this earthquake hit, her coworkers were frantically checking in.
Now moving forward, Aoyama said it will be surreal to return to normal life in just a few weeks.
“I had trauma,” she said. “…I think I will be so nervous.”
At least four people were killed as a result of Monday’s earthquake. Experts now warn more quakes could be ahead over the next few days.
Still on edge about possible aftershocks, Aoyama is set to return to Boston later this month.
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