Local man on edge in Japan following massive quake

Jeff Tanguay says he expects to have a sleepless night tonight.

The Thunder Bay native lives in Ichikawa, Japan, which is about 20 minutes outside of Tokyo by commuter train, and said everyone appears shaken up as aftershocks from an 8.9-magnitude earthquake continue to hit the area.

“Just 20 minutes ago there was another aftershock that felt like someone was pushing your car while you’re sitting inside of it, just rocking it gently,” he told Rock 94’s morning show during a Skype interview from his home in Japan Friday.

“It just keeps coming and coming and I worry that the next one is going to be the big one … I’m probably not going to sleep tonight.”

The powerful earthquake is being called the worst in that country’s recorded history.

Japanese media reports that the death toll is expected to exceed 1,000 as a result of the offshore quake and the seven-metre tsunami it unleashed on the country’s east coast.  

As many as 50 aftershocks continued to hit in the hours that followed the initial quake, and many of those aftershocks hit magnitudes around 6.0.

“It was getting scary just to sit down,” Tanguay said. “When the first shock hit, I thought at first it was just another little rock. But then it started to get worse and in about two minutes the house was rocking and shaking. It was getting scary.”

The quake shutdown Tokyo’s commuter trains, which Tanguay said led to a chaotic scene on the streets as people grabbed taxi cabs or filled busses in an effort to get home.

The Thunder Bay man said he believes he is relatively safe in his Ichikawa home. On the ground level of a house, he said he is just “a broken window away from the outside.”

Meanwhile, the Canadian Red Cross in Thunder Bay has started collecting money to help the victims of the disaster in Japan. 

Donations can be made online, or dropped off at the Red Cross office on Barton Street.