Ten years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake. We no longer talk much about “Where were you that day, that hour, and what were you doing?” Even so, a disaster that left 22,200 dead or missing still weighs heavily on the affected regions.
We opened the “Palaceside Building 50-Year History” and looked back. The account begins: “On Friday, March 11, 2011 (Heisei 23), at 2:46:18 p.m., a magnitude 9.0 megathrust earthquake occurred.”
At Mainichi Building Co.’s headquarters on the fifth floor, “the shaking grew still more violent, and a long-period motion unlike anything we had known continued. The creak of ceiling and walls gradually grew louder… some crouched, some stood dazed.” When it subsided, staff rushed out of the office to inspect the building inside and out.
Seismic retrofit work had just been finished, so damage to the structure stayed minor, but leaking from a shifted sprinkler pipe, emergency stops of the elevators, evacuation to Kitanomaru Park, food cooked by the restaurants, and care for people unable to get home—tense hours followed.
Drawing on that experience, Mainichi Building Co. works with tenants to keep running earthquake-response drills and not to let preparedness lapse. We want to live without ever forgetting the lessons of the Great East Japan Earthquake.