Have you ever experienced a major earthquake?

I was in Tokyo during the March 11, 2011 earthquake that struck in northern Japan. Everyone in Japan had experienced earthquakes in the past, many of level 7 or close to it. So initially, my Japanese co-workers barely reacted at all.

But after a few seconds (which felt like an eternity), everyone knew this was different and were in a bit of shock. Being a foreigner, I over-react to even the smallest of tremors. So by the time this one had just begun to shake, I was already out of the building and in the street, (which in hindsight, was probably a more dangerous place to be).

I recently read an article about how the brain seems to slow time down when you experience a life threatening event. This seemed to happen to me. As I was standing in the street, my eyes were darting around to see buildings shaking like bamboo trees in the wind, power lines swinging everywhere, books falling from a shelf in a window on the 20th floor of a building, a man watching TV on his cell phone saying the earthquake was in Sendai, all DURING the first minute or so of the quake.At the same time, I was worrying about my family on the other side of town, how to communicate with them and my family in the states, and feeling like I had been dropped into a real life set for the movie Inception.

As of Aprill 11, one month after the 9.0 quake, there had been more than 400 aftershocks of magnitude 5 or greater (several over 7). This tends to mess with your sense of equilibrium, but I'm hoping it's a short term issue.In the end, there was virtually no damage to my area of Tokyo, and no harm came to me or my family, which is what really matters.

Honestly, nope thank god I didn't. Hope it never happens either.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.