As most know by now, I do a lot of volunteer work in the ocean activism community when I’m not storm chasing in Tornado Alley.  I was in Otsuchi Japan (Iwate Prefecture) on March 11th, 2011 monitoring the slaughter of Dall’s porpoises for Ric O’Barry’s Save Japan Dolphins and standing just a few feet from the water on a man made pier in the middle of Otsuchi harbor when the M9.0 earthquake hit.

I’m not going to go into details on my personal blog about the events that followed.  I usually keep my activism, and storm chasing separated and will continue to do so.  But, I will say that myself and another team that was monitoring the hunt from Sea Shepherd Conservation Society barely escaped the tsunami by mere minutes, if not seconds.

We watched in horror from the top of a mountain overlooking the harbor while the town was destroyed.  Otsuchi had a population of about 18,000 and more than half of its residents were swept to their fate. What wasn’t destroyed by the earthquake or tsunami was later destroyed by raging fires that burned throughout the night and into the following day.

Obviously as a storm chaser, I’m not new to natural disasters and I’ve seen a lot of things over the years that I wish I hadn’t.  However, this tsunami event is like nothing the ordinary mind could even imagine, this event has changed my life without a doubt.  I’m currently working with the team at Save Japan Dolphins and Earth Island Institute to assist in any way possible for the town’s relief efforts.

My thoughts are with the people of Otsuchi, and elsewhere that was ravaged by this event.  For more information and to stay up-to-date, please visit: http://www.SaveJapanDolphins.org/blog.

Domo Arigato,

Brian

Tags: tsunami