Japan Sinks

by Sakyo Komatsu

  When the violent shocks rocking the building lessened, Yamazaki quickly took stock of the situation. Was it best to use this breathing space to dash downstairs?

  But they were given no time to flee. There was a rumbling like a distant volley of massed artillery, and then the whole building groaned as it began to sway from side to side. Yamazaki clutched at the wall to keep his feet, but the counter-sway sent him sprawling onto the floor. Two or three of the spilled tacks bit into his palms. Fear gripping him, he struggled to his knees, but, far from being able to stand, he could not even manage to get on all fours. The floor shook from side to side at frenzied speed, and Yamazaki was flattened again.

  “Mr. Yamazaki!” Young Yasugawa’s high voice sounded.

  “Under a desk,” shouted Yamazaki. “Get under a desk!”

  There was a loud crash. A heavy bookcase had fallen over. Cracks raced across the walls and ceiling. Pieces of cement began to rain down amid clouds of grimy dust. Clutching his head, Yamazaki looked out from beneath the desk under which he had finally been able to crawl. In shocked amazement he watched as the glass of the adjacent window, ripped from the strong sash that held it, broke apart in the air with a shattering crash. The lights went out. Outside, glowing curtains of sparks seemed to swirl about one another in the gray sky.

  For a moment the rocking slackened off, but then it started up again with renewed fury. A desk computer went sailing through the air, trailing its cord, and smashed into the wall close to Yamazaki. The tremors this time were fiercer yet. The building swayed crazily, its whole frame groaning with terrible force, and chunks of cement crashed down from the ceiling. Yamazaki felt the floor lurch sharply upward.

  Would the building go over? With relative calm, he considered the situation. They were on the sixth floor of a seven-floor building. Were it to collapse, their chances of survival were almost nil. To be caught in the midst of that shattered mass of concrete falling to earth!

  Now there was a staccato pounding. The window frame swayed again and then came free, and as Yamazaki watched, it sailed leisurely out into space. Was he about to die? In one part of his mind, he coolly weighed the question. Were he to die now, he thought, how void of meaning his life would be!

  The rumbling gradually subsided. The floor was tilted several degrees. In the dim light Yamazaki could see that the room was filled with a cloud of dust. When he tried to crawl out from beneath the desk, he found something blocking his way. A section of fallen ceiling was draped over the desk. The aspect of the room, seen by the faint light that came in through the windows, was one of frightful disorder. Through the dust that choked the room, Yamazaki saw cracks in the walls, holes torn in the ceiling. The floor was covered with shattered concrete. Bookcases and lockers were overturned, desks were crushed. All order had been obliterated, leaving nothing but a shambles. The thing that ever lurked behind the geometric patterns of rational order had shown its terrible visage.

  The raw dust from the broken concrete struck Yamazaki’s nostrils with pungent force.

  “Yasugawa!” Yamazaki called in a hoarse voice. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” came the weak reply. “Something hit me on the head, but I’m all right.”

  Again there was creaking as the room started to rock once more. A tipped bookcase fell over with a crash.

  “What should we do?” Yasugawa asked, his voice shaking like a child’s.

  Outside the noise of explosions sounded rapidly, one after another. At each report a red glow filled the windows. And now, abruptly, the sound of people shouting and crying out began to reach them, as though coming from a long way off. Mixed with the smell of dust was a scorched, burning stench.

  “The first thing we have to do is to get out of here,” said Yamazaki. “There might be aftershocks.”

  “The elevator’s no good, I guess. Would the stairs be all right?”

  “The fire escape would probably be the best.”

  The door to the fire escape was at the end of a short corridor. Broken glass covered the floor and made a grinding noise beneath their shoes. Yamazaki felt a shudder run down his spine as through the gloom he saw the cracks that covered the walls and ceilings.

  The steel door leading to the fire escape turned out to be jammed. Yamazaki resolutely threw his body against it, and it finally burst open. Smoke and searing hot air struck their nostrils. The frame building next door was in flames. The gloom of early evening was filled with the sound of running feet, shouts, and cries of pain. The quake had derailed a commuter train at Harajuku Station just below, and people were milling about along the twisted length of track. The scream of fire sirens came from every direction, and black smoke was starting to pour up.

  “Come on!” Yamazaki shouted as he dashed out through the fire door. He felt the steel plates beneath his feet rattling ominously, and he could hear Yasugawa’s footsteps behind him. Since the building was tilted, the slightest misstep on the fire escape would be disastrous. They climbed down past the fifth floor, then the fourth, turning one way, then another with agonized care. They had reached the third floor when heaven and earth began to groan once more.

  “Careful!” Yasugawa shouted, his voice shrill. “Watch it, Mr. Yamazaki.”

  But Yamazaki had already lost his footing. He plunged down ward, struck the steps heavily, buttocks first, and slid on his back until a landing checked his fall. He tried to get to his feet, but he could not. The steel fire escape shook violently, vibrating like a giant gong. The aftershocks seemed to turn heaven and earth alike into a massive, howling whirlpool. The burning building next door collapsed like a house of cards, and showers of sparks burst in all directions. Something whizzed by, grazing Yamazaki’s cheek, whether a tile or a fragment of zinc roofing he could not tell. A deafening roar broke from the somber sky rumbling overhead, and the fire escape shook still more violently. The strain was such that the steel plates and rods that held it fast to the concrete face of the building began to burst free one after another, as though a rapid-fire cannon were going off in Yamazaki’s ear.

  When evening came, the sinister rumblings that followed the quake gradually quieted, but the destruction went on. For, since there was no means to check them, the fires that had broken out in well over a hundred places throughout the city gradually spread, and in the gathering darkness the red glow that lit the sky grew ever more vivid. Along the shoreline ravaged by tidal waves, flames burst like red lotus petals from ruptured storage tanks and warehouses, and smoke billowed skyward to form massive black columns.

  No trains were running on either the National Railways or the private lines. Fires had broken out in some sections of the sub way. Others were flooded. The streets were everywhere blocked by either fire, rubble, or burning vehicles. The elevated expressways were in still worse condition. Near Nishi Kanda and Shibaura the supporting girders had been twisted out of position, and, all along the expressway, sections of the cement pavement had fallen away, and burning cars, melting the guard rails and turning the asphalt to flaming jelly, had come tumbling down like balls of fire. The seething mass of asphalt on the higher sections of the roadway was flowing down into the tunnels, which were belching fire and thick black smoke. Culverts throughout the city were filled with gas vapors, and periodic explosions sent manhole covers flying. Here and there, rushing water from broken mains clashed with the raging flames to give rise to clouds of steam.

  When Yamazaki once more became aware of his surroundings, he was in a grove of of trees on the grounds of the Meiji Shrine, dragging one leg as he walked. His left ankle seemed to be severely sprained, and with every step fierce pain shot through it. Up to this moment, however, he had taken no notice even of this. He looked around him, but Yasugawa was nowhere to be seen. Instead there were masses of men and women, sobbing, breathing harshly as they hurried along distractedly. To Yamazaki’s rear, beyond the grove, the sky was red.

  How had he survived? Yamazaki wondered dully as he dragged his leg along. He was sure that
the building had collapsed. Hanging on to the landing of the fire escape, he had watched as though in a dream as, undermined by crevices, it had tipped more and more. Together with the fire escape, together with the building, he had been falling as though in slow motion toward the ground below, against which all alike would be pounded and shattered. And then he had been hurled free. Something had struck him painfully in the back, and his body had bounced about like a ball. Sparks had exploded in his face, and a bitter, pungent smell had struck his nostrils. Somebody had let out a piercing scream. He remembered nothing after that.

  The strength was drained from his body, and every part of it ached. He felt something wet and slippery rolling down his face. The arm of his jacket was torn as though slashed with a razor, and his shirt and even his undershirt were ripped in the same way. Blood flowed down his bare arm. The left leg of his pants hung in shreds from the knee down. His shin was covered with abrasions. Oppressed by his weight of pain, he groaned instinctively. Then his heart began to beat at an alarming rate, growing gradually more intense until his ears were ringing.

  Just as he was coming out of the grove, Yamazaki felt his legs giving way beneath him, and he fell to his knees. Sweat rolled down his body. His breathing became painful, and he felt a dizziness taking hold of him. Then the whining roar in his ears gradually subsided, and the cries of distraught men and women came to him from a distance like ripples striking his ear. He took two or three deep breaths, and his head cleared at last.

  Here beneath the trees of the Outer Garden, thousands of people had already come together. Sometimes the glare of some blaze shone through the trees to light with a dim glow the chaos of this terrible night.

  “All of downtown is gone!” somebody shouted. “Akasaka and Shibuya, too. Aoyama is going to be next.”

  “Tokyo Bay is a sea of flames, I tell you.” This last was said in low and hurried tones by somebody passing by. “From Tsukiji to Shinagawa . . . the whole area . . . and the Ginza, too—all wiped out.”

  Feeling the pain in his leg, Yamazaki got to his feet. Suddenly he began to worry about his family. His weary, grumbling wife . . . his pimply-faced oldest son, who had let his hair grow womanlike in keeping with the latest fad . . . and then his older daughter, who resembled neither of her parents and whose strikingly beautiful face gave him all the more cause for concern now that she was growing into adolescence, and his younger daughter, somewhat retarded because of a mild case of polio . . .

  “Excuse me a minute, please,” said Yamazaki to a passing stranger. “Have they got the trains going again?”

  “The trains?” the stranger burst out, his voice harsh. “Why, the tracks are twisted like pretzels. And then there’ve been landslides and everything. Why, at Shibuya . . . when a train packed with people was leaving the station, and just as it was starting to move, it jumped the elevated tracks. There’re bodies everywhere. I’ve just seen it with my own eyes.”

  “It’s horrible on the expressways,” somebody said in a high-pitched, tearful voice. “In Kasumigaseki it’s horrible. In the tunnel there ...”

  “What are the police doing anyway?” asked somebody else. “Where are they? Any other time you’d see them all over the place.”

  Suddenly there was a loud, joyful shout at the edge of the crowd. Yamazaki heard the sound of truck engines, and from beneath the trees the glaring beams of headlights lit the faces of those around him. Three trucks pulled up and stopped, and helmeted soldiers in khaki uniforms began to jump down.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a relief squad of the Ground-Defense Force,” a loudspeaker announced. “Are there any injured among you in need of immediate attention? We’ll take charge of them at once. As for those of you who can walk, please proceed to the gymnasiums and indoor pool at Yoyogi. Emergency relief stations have been set up. Please remain calm and maintain your normal behavior. The earthquake is over with. As for the fire, due measures are being taken. It’s too early to say how soon rail service can be restored, but engineer battalions of the Ground Defense Force are laboring right now to open the lines leading from Tokyo to each outlying area.”

  “Can you take us home?” somebody yelled. “My family’s in Mitaka. They’re worrying.”

  “Any time now transportation units should be arriving over by Yoyogi Sports Center. So please go to the Sports Center. Only, ladies and gentlemen, because there will be such a crush of people, please stay calm and don’t get excited. At the Sports Center there should be news available about the damage sustained in each district and about the resumption of travel. As much food and drink as possible has been prepared there. So, calmly, orderly, proceed to the Sports Center, please. The troops will guide you there.”

  A searchlight went on, sending a stir through the crowd. They had yearned so much for light that now that they had it they were uncertain as to whether they could trust it. By the light spilling from the searchlight, Yamazaki studied the face of the officer talking to the crowd. His intrepid face was sunburned, and his cheeks were touched with an odd trace of childish innocence. From overhead came the whirring racket of a helicopter. A wind was beginning to rise. That helicopter will have a hard time of it, Yamazaki thought, as he glanced over his shoulder at the scarlet glow of the fiery destruction behind him.

  Climbing black smoke covered the sky, lit by the baleful glare of the flames. Thunderous booms, probably exploding petroleum tanks, shook the sky again and again.

  Suddenly Yamazaki found himself reliving an old memory. During the war . . . the night of the great raid on Tokyo . . . He had been in his late teens then. The night that his neighborhood in Shinagawa had been burned out, the night that his mother and his younger brother had died. The heavy, listless feeling he had felt then came back to him all at once, the mood that had gripped him that night when he had stood straight up, not going down into the shelter, watching the heavy rain of incendiaries and the fiery chaos around him—a sullen mood, a sense of help less frustration . . . Since that long-ago night, Tokyo had expanded to a city of fabulous proportions. The destruction must be incredible, Yamazaki thought. If the oil floating on Tokyo Bay took fire, there would be a dreadful holocaust. And even after the destruction had been checked, civil paralysis, given the incredibly complex system of metropolitan government, might persist for a long period. Disorder could spread through out the whole country.

  What a situation, thought Yamazaki, dragging his leg pain fully as he walked in the midst of the now-moving crowd. If the Cabinet should fall in the near future . . .

  Black specks and white specks fluttered in the air, lit by the beam of the searchlight. Yamazaki looked up. In the lead-colored sky a seemingly infinite number of black spots danced in the wind, blown along across the sky like a million flickering bat wings.

  “Ashes are falling”, muttered an old man next to Yamazaki. “We’ll get soaked. It always happens. There’ll be rain. After a big fire there’s always rain. Isn’t that right? That’s the way it was during the big raids.”

  Yamazaki felt a drop strike his cheek from the shower that was indeed beginning. In a corner of his overburdened mind, he gloomily considered the future of Plan D. If the Cabinet should fall, what in the world would they be able to do then?

  2

  At eleven that same night, the Yoshino passed through the Uraga Channel. Those on board had already seen from afar the fiery destruction raging along the Sagami Bay shoreline while the Yoshino was approaching the Miura Peninsula, but when the ship entered the channel, the salt breeze carried a peculiar, undefined stench. When they were passing Cap Kannon, the rain, which had been intermittent till then, suddenly began to fall in sheets, and little could be made out. Yet Onodera could see from the bridge the flames rising from underground storage tanks, glowing with a deep scarlet intensity like the fires of hell.

  “Tokyo is burning,” muttered Kataoka, who was standing beside Onodera at the end of the bridge. “Kawasaki, too, and Chiba . . .”

  “I guess the tidal waves
hit about three hours ago,” said Onodera, pulling the hood of his raincoat tighter about his head. “The damage must be terrible.”

  The Yoshino was proceeding at a reduced speed of seven to eight knots. A steam whistle echoed in the midst of the rain.

  Flames shot suddenly upward at a point either in Kawasaki or Yokohama, probably from exploding tanks, and the noise was like the rumbling of the bowels of the earth.

  “What an awful stench,” said Nakata, frowning and wrinkling up his nose, wet from the rain. “I imagine we’ll put in at Yokosuka. The city is probably in chaos, but they say that it would be dangerous to go too far north. Because of poisonous gas, heavy oil fires, and wreckage from the tidal waves.”

  Peering down at the dark surface of the sea, Onodera realized that for some time they had been surrounded by all sorts of floating objects. Crates, tatami mats, oil drums, planks of wood, shattered fragments of every kind, and what looked like corpses.

  “Off the port bow—something adrift!” shouted the watch at the bow.

  A searchlight flashed on. There was a groaning roar set up by the front screw, and the Yoshino suddenly veered to one side. A derelict of some thousands of tons passed closely on the port side, nearly submerged, its capsized hull just above the surface.

  From out of the rain and darkness came a faint cry.

  “On the starboard bow—man in the water!” Again the watch’s voice sounded through the rain.

  “Reverse engines!” the captain ordered, speaking into the intercom in a low voice. “Lower a starboard lifeboat. Pick the fellow up.”

  While the boat was being lowered with a clattering noise, the glaring beam of the searchlight turned to the right and probed the water, but there was nothing to be seen on the surface of the sea lashed by the rain.

  “Up ahead there’s a lot of derelict ships,” said the navigator, studying the radar screen. “Probably fishing boats and lighters smashed by the tidal waves.”