A day of many disasters (prevented)

Good day all,

I (Dan) spent this morning as one of several (a couple hundred) people taking part in disaster relief drills. We'll get to my role in a second, but first I want to tell you about this event. All I knew about today's program was that it was an earthquake drill. As I walked onto the big open field with my Japanese counter-parts I saw the set up for several simulated disasters: a car buried under a pile of dirt, little wood structures just waiting to be lit on fire, a three story building mock-up, and a few dilapidated cars. All this was spread out over an open dirt field. Along one side of the field ran a string of large tents with hundreds of chairs set-up under them. As we walked, we passed fire trucks from a dozen different cities, military jeeps with helicopters circling overhead - the whole works.
Today was a very serious day of drills but it really felt like a big action stunt show that you'd see at Universal Studios. It started with the fire departments putting out the little wood buildings, later came the jaws of life ripping into the old cars to save someone trapped inside, Japanese Air Corp Search and Rescue guys repelling from helicopters to pick up a guy from the top of a building, ladder rescues from earthquake shaken buildings, and on and on.
In the background of center stage show was a large support system of volunteers making over 2000 rice balls that would be distributed to victims and volunteers in case of a real disaster (we all got these rice balls to take as lunch). Also a tent was set up where people who wanted to volunteer to help victims to register and be given jobs. Thats where I spent my day. I was there fulfilling two needs. First, I had to play the token foreigner who couldn't speak, read or understand anything in Japanese. That was harder then you might think (I do understand Japanese). They had an interpreter there who was supposed to translate between me and the volunteer trying to help me (in case of a disaster). It was practice for the volunteers to communicate with a foreigner. There was also a woman from South Korea who was playing the same role as me, but in Korean. My other role was that of an interpreter. If there was a real situation I would be asked to help take care of the foreigners. Pretty interesting.
Andi was jealous of me all morning because I texted her pictures from my cell phone. Unfortunately, my cell phone was the only camera that I had with me, maybe I can find some pictures from other people. I work on that.
The simulation was for a 9.6 on the Richter scale earthquake. The quake in China earlier this year was a 8.0 and the largest that we've felted here in Japan was about 7. A 9.6 would be 150 times stronger then anything that I've ever felt. Thats huge. A quake that big would cause such wide spread destruction. Since we moved here we been told several times that "the big one" is coming any day now.
All day I was thinking, "I hope that there isn't a real disaster somewhere else today." Because all the stuff was in my town.