00:00:01 John Daub: Alright, right now, leave me the way here. This here is an earthquake simulator. It's just a trailer that has in the back of it what will be a Shindo 7 or a very strong magnitude earthquake. These brave souls here, Japanese students, are going to go inside and try it out. I'm pretty excited to see their reaction. And maybe, just maybe, I'm going to do it myself. Joining us is the Japanese police department, which is really cool. And we're getting a chance to experience this. I'm probably going to end up doing this as well.

00:00:37 John Daub: Welcome everybody. I'm at Futaba and I want to talk about also the experience that we've had. We're going up and down the coast here in Fukushima and getting a chance to experience the museum here, the disaster museum, as well as some of the areas that have been rebuilt after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that happened 13 years ago. Having this kind of training is really important.

00:01:05 John Daub: Are you guys nervous? No, a little bit. Have you done this before? No. First time? Yeah, first Shindo 7. It's the first time. Oh my gosh. We can do this. So this can hold up to four people. And then, after they finish, depending on their reaction, I'm going to go and maybe try this out.

00:01:30 John Daub: So let me show you very quickly as they get ready for this. The museum. This is the Great East Japan Earthquake and Nuclear Disaster Memorial Museum. We went there yesterday to go take a look inside. I wanted to live stream this for you, but we couldn't. The great thing about it was we got to meet somebody. This is her elementary school. She was just a third year elementary school student. Now she's grown up and talking about her experiences at the museum, which is amazingly insightful.

00:02:03 John Daub: This is where her mother was. You can see the building collapsed. This is a liquor store. And she made it out alive. The stories that she told us really bring that event to a different level. And you can really feel it. That's her house on the right side there. She lived right on the coast in Namie. And you can see there's just nothing left. This is a couple of months afterwards. So the museum, she brought some flowers to mark the spot. And you know, there's so many untold stories, unheard stories about the Great East Japan Earthquake.

00:02:34 John Daub: Heard stories about what happened on that day which you can experience at the museum which I think is very valuable. There's a map of the coastal region. I'm at Futaba Station right now at the Dharma festival. This is also the remains of the grounds there. And then when you go inside the museum they have a lot of artifacts, things that were used in the days and weeks and months and years since the tsunami and earthquake of March 11th, 2011. Some of the buildings that were still standing months after. This is the museum and inside it's so well done with a lot of information. There's some things in English as well so if you're not a fluent Japanese speaker you're going to get some good information and you'll take away a lot of things that happened.

00:03:18 John Daub: I think it's always good to come to the origin very much like in Hiroshima going and seeing the museum there about the Second World War or Nagasaki in other places where disasters happened. That's a chalkboard from one of the schools. They just brought the whole thing into the museum and preserved what was written on the chalkboard that day. Little things like that really make you feel what happened on that day.

00:03:40 John Daub: For the heads up, those black bags are the dirt that they removed from the area here and this is what makes the place quite safe. I'll show you a little bit more of this as they're starting to get into the simulator right now. They're giving them some instructions. Are you nervous? A little bit nervous, huh? This is going to be awesome.

00:05:18 John Daub: Oh, wow. You can see the simulator gives people that have never been in an earthquake a chance to feel what it's like. The amount of energy, the impact of it is a lot. I have to be honest with you, I'm almost in tears. I don't like it. Let's see what the kids have to say. I have a different perspective.

00:05:46 Student: Oh, wow. Yeah. So, here, let me put the mic on you now. Harry, how was, what did you feel being in an earthquake that strong?

00:05:58 Student (Harry): Like, I never felt these like Shindo 7 earthquakes, so it was like different than what I had experienced, like jishin (earthquake) like 5 or 4. It was like, I can't even move by myself. I can't just evacuate if I'm in this situation. If I think about it, it's really scary that these big earthquakes happened in here.

00:06:27 John Daub: You've been in some like Shindo 5, right?

00:06:30 Student (Harry): Yeah, but not... Nothing like that.

00:06:31 John Daub: Yeah. That's, you can't even stand up. It was violent. It was like a roller coaster, like going up and down. The feedback is important. I think if you've never been in an earthquake, I really want you to see what it's like and if you ever get the chance to feel what it's like. Because you don't really take it seriously unless you feel it.

00:06:53 John Daub: I had a different perspective. I'm almost in tears and terror actually. When I hear the ringing, I actually have terror. And I remember that day. That's what scares me because you don't feel in control when you're in an earthquake like this. And I think it's good to try. It looks almost like a ride, like a roller coaster. But it's anything but. This is real.

00:07:24 John Daub: And when I was in an earthquake, in that great Tohoku earthquake, and I see it, I remember what happened after. You remember the tsunami. The tsunami that comes after this. What happens after the earthquake. And that's hard. So I have a very different point of view. After you've been through it, it's different. You change. Right? You change. Alright, let's do this. We're going to do this. I have to go and try and report on it.

00:08:17 John Daub: If there's anything that you're afraid of, you can just go up. No. You can just go up. And you can use the silver pole on the side, or the desk. Alright, he's giving us some instructions. We're now inside of the earthquake simulator. Shindo nana (Shindo 7). First time. This is the same as what was in Ishikawa, he said? The same as what just happened at the Noto earthquake in Ishikawa Prefecture.

00:08:57 John Daub: So it starts off, you feel the up and down bouncing of it. And then it just goes out of control. Ah, the chairs are moving! You can see on the screen over there, there's a simulation of things moving in the opposite direction. Everything is just swaying. Awawa? (flailing about).

00:10:08 John Daub: How was it? There's nothing that you can do?

00:10:12 Student: Yes, like, I thought there's nothing I can do. Like, I can't go under the desk, and like, just only... Like, sitting is also difficult. And so I thought, like, we need to check our house, and like, is there nothing that falls off from the high place?

00:10:39 John Daub: Yeah. I don't think you can prepare for this. If there's a Shindo 7, we can't do anything. Should we just sit? What should we do? We shouldn't move. We should just sit. Wow. And then, like, hide your head under the desk, or cover your head with a blanket, or something.

00:11:01 John Daub: Oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Ah, you... I got to experience it, so I'll give you something you can use over there. This is the fourth one, but like a seal, or something. A seal. What color would you like? White? Black. Thank you very much. Oh, wow. Toilet paper. Yeah, because Leo is toilet training. So, maybe he's gonna wanna go if he sees a fire truck. So he got some toilet paper for Leo. That's really nice. Arigatou (thank you).

00:11:49 John Daub: Awa, you have more people that are going to try this here? Oh, they're gonna try it as well? It looks like my mom's gonna see me. I want to try. Are you sure you don't want to try? No way. Really? I'll give you some more yakisoba (fried noodles). No. No thank you? This time your mom will try. No thank you. Yeah, maybe your mom's gonna try though. My mom had never... Oh yeah. My mom will. Real.

00:12:35 John Daub: Alright, we're gonna see it one more time. I hate that sound. Inside it tells you the intensity. Do you see there's a little gauge in there. Level six and then it'll go to nana (7). There. This is Shindo 7. Back to six. High. That's a six. 6 high and 6 low and then this is Shindo 7 again. So you can see the number changing. This is 6 high. So you can see the differences. 6 low, 5 low, 6 low, 5 high. So you see the difference between a 5, 6 and a 7 that gives you a basic idea.

00:13:35 John Daub: See I guess you could say that it does seem like a ride but for someone who's been through it, this is a life destroying thing. It destroys lives. That's what I see. That's what I feel when I hear that noise. It's a life destroying thing when I hear that noise. It's scary. It's so scary guys. You have no idea. I'm glad that they... You're still feeling it. Yeah. This is... That's what they felt. They felt the Shindo 7 in Ishikawa in the Noto earthquake. That intensity and you can tell not a lot of buildings can withstand that, the older types.

00:14:35 John Daub: It takes really special construction to do that and this is what happened right here in this area 13 years ago. That earthquake just shook Futaba Station, Namie, Minamisoma, this whole region and all the aftershocks after that. It's a devastating event. I'm glad that we got a chance to share this with you to show you the impact of the earthquakes here. I want to show you a little bit more about the experience that we've had here.

00:15:07 John Daub: After the museum that we went in to visit, we went out to the elementary school which is a place that you can go. That high ground is a place where people evacuated to up there. So this is the memorial in Namie of the people who lost their lives and we had a guide explain some of that to us. I think it has a lot of meaning. Not a lot behind me. But it's a time where you reflect when you go to a thing like this. Those are those black bags. So the grounds, the top soil was all taken away, put in these storage bags and they're separated from the town. All around the area here you see that and that comes from the radiation.

00:15:52 John Daub: That's the Shindo 7. Oh that sound. This is the highway that was wiped away and you can see more bags of ground soil being moved to different areas. But today it's a place where you can live again. This is the elementary school here and you can see where the water line was for the tsunami. The tsunami came that high to the second floor and the first floor right here just devastated. The school of course you can no longer go in there but going to the school and seeing this is where that I showed you earlier at the museum. She went to school here and survived. Now it's a place where you can remember what happened on that day. The water level going just almost to the second floor.

00:16:37 John Daub: So it's been a really great experience to come on this bus trip and then see the museum but also hear from the people who lived here. The kids that were in the schools, the younger people that survived and they are survivors, now can share those stories. Just like in an episode recently I interviewed someone who is now 93 years old and she survived the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. We have people here that survived it and they can share their experiences when they're ready to do that and then those stories to the younger generation are important. So not only do we remember the people that lost their lives that day and what happened that day but also to learn from it in the future. And I think that's such a valuable part of the education here.

00:17:22 John Daub: Let me show you a map. Here's the map. This is the map of the area. This is from Tokyo. Tokyo is the city and how far away we are. We're in Fukushima Prefecture which is quite a long ways away to get here. Here's the coastal line, the Pacific and Fukushima is up there on the top. So this is the coast where the tsunami and the earthquake hit. And this is coming into the coast and that's where we are right now on the coastline. You can see the TEPCO reactor right there on the bus. That's the bottom right side and all that land in the middle there. That's where we are right now in Futaba.

00:18:02 John Daub: I hope that this gives you kind of an idea about the intensity of the earthquakes that we experience here in Japan. For me, this is maybe the scariest thing in my life that I've ever, and I still am very, I didn't realize how traumatized I was by the events 13 years ago even to this day. When I saw you guys in the earthquake, I could see it looks like almost a roller coaster, right? But to me, it's terror. It's horror. It's people who lost their lives. It's buildings that collapsed. It's the NHK that day on TV of all that stuff that was just wiped away and nobody had control. That's what I see when I saw that simulator and even to this day, I'm still a little bit surprised how traumatized I am. You don't realize it until you hear that and you go into the simulator again.

00:18:58 John Daub: Anyways, it's kind of neat at this festival. You can see there's some motorcycles. It's a great chance for you to learn a little bit about also the disaster relief and Japan is maybe the most prepared country in the world for these kinds of things. Look, there's a lot of chances for you to try stuff out. If I had time, I want to be a riot police officer. This is my son Leo's dream to be a police officer. That's so cool. Tortoropoco, thank you for bringing us here. Thank you so much. And thank you everybody else.

00:19:37 John Daub: I'm heading back to Tokyo, right? You guys are going back here. We had a good trip, right? It was a really good trip and a really good experience and I'm glad to be a part of this. And now if you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. I want to hear from you now. What did you think about this earthquake simulator? Is this something you would like to try out? Do you think that Japan is prepared for the earthquakes? Do you think that tourism here in Fukushima and the Minamisoma area is prepared for the earthquakes? Do you think that the Minamisoma area is something that you would be interested in learning more about?

00:20:05 John Daub: Because I think that the efforts that they're doing here is really important for the next generation and for the people visiting Japan who saw this stuff on TV to experience it and know what's happening now and how the people are coming back. And that's exciting. And for me as somebody who lived through it, I need that hope. And I saw that on this trip. I see the green grass growing back and the trees growing again and the new houses and more people. And that's really a positive thing. That's a really positive story. So, back to Tokyo. See you everybody. Bye-bye.