The government was hit from all sides with questions prompted by the rumors. The faces of newspapermen gradually altered, their eyes became bloodshot, and the press room of every ministry began to echo with angry voices talking over the phone. Though there were still some days left till the opening of the special session, members of the Diet, were holding crowded meetings every day and harassing ministry officials with questions, demanding to know what was going on. Among the public, especially in Tokyo, the flood of wild rumors grew more intense. White-collar workers left the work on their desks untouched, but they came together in little groups in corners of their offices as though they needed contact with one another. What is going to happen, I wonder? Just what are we going to do? Is the government going to do anything for us or not?
Taxi drivers began to greet their customers by saying: “Is it true, do you think—about Tokyo going to sink?” Bookstores sold out everything having to do with earthquakes and geology. Everyone had become convinced that something was impending.
7
On March 11 an American geodesic group made an announcement that sent an electric shock through the world: a massive shift in the crust of the earth was taking place on the continental shelf of East Asia, with the Japan Archipelago at its center. This came three days before the government’s intended announcement.
The American statement came at two in the afternoon, Eastern Standard Time. It took the form of an urgent exchange between Dr. Eugene Cox, chairman of the geodesic group, and the director of a satellite research group. The expressions used in the conversation were extremely reserved, but the burden of it was that the information gathered in the previous months by satellites and survey ships pointed toward an immense change, an alteration of the crust of the earth on a scale altogether unprecedented. And it would come, at the latest, within a year. When one of the reporters asked if the area described did not in fact take in the whole of Japan, Dr. Cox’s response was unequivocal: the Japan Archipelago would be at the focal point of the change.
Pressed for detailed information, the chairman avoided a direct answer, but said: “Well, it’s the kind of thing that makes you think of the Atlantis legend.” This was enough to galvanize the reporters. Three hours after the American announcement, the AFP in Paris, citing an “unimpeachable source,” sent out the sensational headline: “Day of Japan’s Destruction Approaching.”
An hour and a quarter before the Diet session was to open, almost all its members had already taken their places. At precisely one o’clock the presiding officer declared the session open, and the Prime Minister immediately stepped up to the podium, a grave expression on his face. Strobe lights flashed, and the television cameras zoomed in on him. He picked up his speech, coughed faintly, and, in a somewhat subdued voice, began to read it.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Diet, as the one holding the foremost responsibility in this nation, it is my duty to inform you that Japan is now confronting an unprecedented peril, something that could well be termed national disaster.”
Just as the Prime Minister was beginning his talk, Onodera, wearing a topcoat and carrying a suitcase, appeared in the door of the D-l room at Plan D headquarters. Though it was time for the afternoon’s work to be under way, most of the men were crowded into the conference room to listen to the Prime Minister on television. The office next to the Display Room stood nearly empty. In a corner of it Yukinaga and Nakata, listening to the speech on a portable radio, were smoking with weary expressions on their faces.
Seeing Onodera, Yukinaga raised his hand. “You’re going today?”
“Yes. A three-thirty flight out of Narita.” Onodera smiled faintly, but his expression was melancholy, and he seemed ill at ease. His work was finished. He had faithfully discharged his duties, and yet . . .
“It’s good you are. After this speech, tickets and foreign currency alike will be hard to come by.”
“He’s begun to tell them.” Onodera indicated the radio with a nod.
“As some of you may have heard on the news broadcast from abroad this morning,” came the Prime Minister’s voice, “in the near future a vast change in the crust of the earth will occur, with the Japan Archipelago at its center. Japanese scientists and research organizations set up by the government have informed me of the certainty that this will deal an annihilating blow to our homeland. ...”
“I suppose that this is the first time the Prime Minister of Japan has ever been on radio and TV all over the world,” said Nakata quietly. He laughed faintly.
“... The various aspects of this change and the time of its occurrence became evident only recently. According to the forecast of our research groups, this change will occur within one year. And it will not only cause immense destruction in every part of the country through earthquakes, but the fact is that Japan in practically its entirety will sink into the ocean. ...”
A phone rang. Nakata picked it up and hung up after a brief exchange.
“Mount Fuji is showing more and more acute signs of erupting. Smoke is pouring up from two or three spots in the Hoei crater. In Hakone there have been smoke and minor explosions in Kamiyama and Owaku Valley.”
“Mount Fuji?” Onodera muttered. An ill-omened shadow seemed to pass over him.
“Evacuation began in that area yesterday. The earth’s been rising at the rate of nearly an inch a day in Tonozawa and two a day to the north of Mount Ashitaka.”
“Well, goodbye, gentlemen,” said Onodera. “I hope we meet again somewhere in the world.”
At that moment the glasses and ink bottles on the desks in the room began to rattle. A pencil rolled off and fell to the floor, and there was a light crack as the lead inside snapped.
“It’s started,” whispered Nakata, turning to the window behind him.
“It looks like it.” Yukinaga got up and stood beside him.
The window did not have a direct view of Mount Fuji, but a huge gray mushroom-shaped cloud was rapidly rising and spreading over the clear, pale blue March sky. Shock waves rattled the glass.
“This is going to be big,” said Nakata.
“Should we go up to the roof to see?”
The phone rang again. Yukinaga took it this time. His voice grew loud. The connection was apparently a bad one. Then, as though suddenly realizing who the party was, his expression changed and he held the phone out to Onodera.
“It’s for you. . . . It’s a woman.”
Onodera lunged for the phone.
“Hello, hello ...” Loud static crackled in his ear. Someone was shouting at the other end. “Hello, hello ...” The distant voice was Reiko’s.
“Where are you?” Onodera shouted into the phone, covering one ear with his hand.
“I’m at a place ... off the Manazuru Road. . . . Traffic is blocked.”
“The Manazuru Road?” Onodera’s voice grew louder in his excitement. “What are you doing there? We’ve got to be at Narita by three-thirty.”
“Yesterday ... it came up suddenly ... to Izu ...” The static, together with shouting in the background, grew so loud that he could make out little of what Reiko was saying. “. . . by train, but . . . early this morning ... I started to drive, but ...”
“Hello, hello . . .” Sweat began to roll down Onodera’s body. “I can’t hear you!”
“I got as far as here . . . eruption, stones . . . the road was blocked. ...”
There was a booming noise in the background, and then the sound of hard objects striking, like heavy hail on a roof. He heard the drawn-out screams of women and the cries of children. He heard the crackling sound of wood shredding and of breaking glass.
“Hot ashes are falling. Everything is white outside. Hot stones are flying through the air....” Suddenly he heard Reiko clearly. “Toshio—we were going to go together. You go ahead to Switzerland. Go ahead! I’ll meet you, whatever happens.”
“Reiko, no . . .” said Onodera, shouting into the phone as he gripped it tightly with his sweaty hand. “Don’t talk lik
e a fool.”
A thunderous roar sounded in his ear. There were screams, the sound of the earth groaning, of something falling. Reiko’s voice had risen to a desperate pitch, but he was able to catch only a single word.
“. . . Geneva . . .”
There was a terrible crash, and the connection was cut. Nothing sounded in his ear but a faint hum.
Onodera stood stunned. The blood seemed to be draining out of his body. Covered with sweat, he turned to the window, and as he stared out, his eyes wide and frantic, he felt tears wetting his face.
“What’s the matter?” asked Nakata. “Onodera, where are you going?”
Onodera’s tall figure, however, had already disappeared through the door.
“... Such being the circumstances, then, I would call upon the entire nation to remain calm.,, The Prime Minister’s voice was still coming from the radio. Now he was addressing the people of Japan directly. “I ask your cooperation in the maintenance of order. Whatever course events take, this administration, this legislative body will give itself wholly to the task of saving the life of every Japanese in the face of the coming destruction. ...”
Some minutes after the eruption began, the first sound wave struck, having covered some fifty miles. It was like a thunderclap, shaking the whole sky. Once more the room vibrated with shock. Yukinaga, still in the doorway, instinctively glanced out the window. A pall of smoke already lay over the western horizon.
The great eruption of Mount Fuji, occurring on March 12 at 1:21 P.M. just as the Prime Minister was addressing the nation, began with an explosion on its southeast side, about 1,000 yards from the peak, followed by the bursting open of some twenty craters of varying size, one after another, on the slope below, spewing forth gas, ashes, and fiery projectiles. And at almost the same time several peaks to the southeast erupted. Fiery ashes and rocks bombarded the area, blocking the Tokyo-Nagoya Expressway and cutting both the regular Tokkaido Line and the Super Express.
The first eruption went on for about two hours. And then, after a brief lull, at about 3:45 P.M. there was a tremendous explosion near the peak which carried off the entire crest of the mountain. At the same time a vast crater opened on the northern slope and a flood of lava came pouring out, for the first time in 900 years, rolling down the slope and turning the forests below into a sea of fire. The lava swallowed up a village and a cluster of resort hotels and poured into the Sai and Motosu lakes at the foot of Fuji. This cataclysm, though in fact no more than a prelude, raged for some six hours, and then there was a slackening off which lasted for about four hours. During the entire period a heavy, muddy rain fell, mixed with volcanic ash. Finally, at 1:25 A.M. on March 14 an earthquake struck the area to the southwest, and three minutes later a massive eruption blew the top of Mount Fuji into the air and split the entire mountain on a northwest-southeast line, transforming it at one stroke. Energy stored up for more than 20,000 years, trapped in a volcano that was expected never to erupt again, tore Fuji asunder, and the rain of rocks and ashes, the flood of lava, the shock waves killed more than 20,000 people. Fuji shrank in height by some 2,000 feet, and the entire district sank more than three feet. The lovely, cone-shaped mountain that had been celebrated from the era of the Manyoshu poems as the symbol of Japan was turned into a scarred crater, a hellish caldron several miles in diameter—one, moreover, that was split in such a way that it appeared to be two mountains. The volcanic ash that fell from the sky reached a depth of six feet in the vicinity of Odawara, three feet in Kofu, and in Tokyo itself four to eight inches in some places. A light coat of it covered even the runways of Narita Airport, nearly thirty miles away.
On March 22 a message came from the Plan D field group in central Japan to the Policy Committee informing them that Eastern and Western Japan, divided by the fossa magna, were beginning to slip away from each other at a considerable rate. At present the rate was several millimeters a day, and it was gradually increasing. By mid-April, the report said, the rate would most likely be several inches a day.
8
The Japan Archipelago would sink within a year. The government’s announcement shocked the world, but the reaction in Japan itself was strangely calm, though it might be more accurate to say that the news had plunged the Japanese into an enervated, ominous silence. There were those who ran outside screaming, but such cases were extremely rare. As they listened to the Prime Minister’s address, a hard, blank expression came over people’s faces. When the broadcast had ended, the only show of emotion was, for the most part, a faint sigh. It may have been that the news was so fantastic that, for the moment, everyone was at a loss how to respond to it. At factories and offices, most workers kept on staring at the television screen as though hypnotized as they listened to the commentary and explanation that followed. There were a good number, however, who stole quietly away, and one minute after the Prime Minister had finished speaking, telephones began to ring all over Japan: Did you watch television? . . . Did you hear the speech? . . . Japan sinking—what do you think of that? . . . What are you going to do? . . . Hello, it’s me. Did you hear the news? . . . Yeah, I’m coming home. I’ll be right home anyway. . . . Call the children home from school. . . .
The strange thing was that there were no discussions in factories and offices. There everybody avoided each other, while some ran to the telephone and others sat thinking, looking off into space uneasily, drumming their fingers upon the tops of desks or tables.
People walked rapidly, spurred by the fear of being hit by the hard chunks of ash falling from the sky. Taxis raced by at reckless speed as though unwilling to stop to pick anyone up. Their drivers were transformed, as they listened to their radios, from men at work to fearful individuals with one thought on their minds: to get home to their families as quickly as possible.
Home! It was as though the people of this great city were crying out with a single voice as they hurried along through the rain of gray-brown ash. To get home—and then what? What could be done? Though this was the thought that loomed up dimly in the heart of everyone, no one confronted it. For now, what had to be done was to get back to one’s family. After that there would be time to think about what to do.
The Japan Archipelago continued to shake convulsively. There were earthquakes registering a strength of four in every part of the country, from Hokkaido to Kyushu. Mount Aso, in the south, and Tokachi Peak, in the north, erupted at almost the same time. The tunnel connecting northern Honshu and Hokkaido had already been made unusable by flooding the previous month, and now, at the beginning of April, the rail and traffic tunnels linking Kyushu and Honshu were destroyed in the wake of a magnitude-seven earthquake which rocked Western Japan. It left the bridge over the Shimonoseki Straits so twisted that it was closed to any but light vehicles. More eruptions followed on Kyushu, and its Pacific shoreline began to sink at the appalling speed of nine feet a day. There were further eruptions in western Honshu.
In the face of all this, the people remained calm, docilely waiting to hear what the government had to say, but since the promulgation of the general plan of evacuation, there had been nothing in the way of detailed instructions. And so the days passed, and those who lived near the international airports would gather to watch the hasty departure of the big jets carrying priority personnel. Though their faces seemed without expression, their eyes, bit by bit, began to manifest growing anxiety and mistrust. Who were these people, they wondered, who were filling the planes now that the government was running everything? The rich? The families of officials? Ward-office hangers-on? How about us? Are we going to be left till last and then abandoned when things get too dangerous? They did not put their discontent into words as yet, but it grew more intense each time they saw a departing jet climbing into the sky.
They still had faith in Japan, however, still had faith in their government. Moreover, they made every effort to strengthen this faith. The government would do something. The government would not abandon them. For politicians and officials were, af
ter all, Japanese just like themselves—a historically rooted sense of identity that everyone shared. The Emperor had had but to speak, and the war had ended. And in the present crisis the nation was waiting in submission for whatever the government had to say, giving it the benefit of every doubt. This was the fundamental spirit of the Japanese, however critical, enraged, or vituperative they could be toward their nation on occasion.
This spirit, however, was being put to the test. The possibility of panic could not be ruled out. People were tending to let their eyes rove anxiously as though looking for a way out. At first whenever two such glances would meet, there would be a quick averting of eyes. But, gradually, people began to seek each other’s eyes, as though to share their sense of being trapped. And as everyone looked on with grim, pale faces, small quakes came and went unrelentingly, and volcanic ash kept falling.
9
“A reply has come from China,” said Kunieda to Nakata at the headquarters of the Evacuation Committee. “They want it kept confidential, but they’ll take two million people right away and seven million eventually. And perhaps they might be willing to take still more after negotiations.,,
“Why, that’s incredible,” said Nakata. “No matter how big China is, its per-capita income is too low for that. What about the food supply?”
“Well, what they want are farmers . . . and skilled workers, too.”
The United Nations had formed a committee to direct the Japanese relief operation, and gradually it began to take measures, including the formation of a plan for the distribution of refugees in which all the navies of the world would cooperate.
Japan Sinks Page 17