I'm in Japan: Long queues for petrol, empty supermarket shelves, no torchlights or candles

14th Mar 11 - Three days after the worst earthquake in Japan's history. The petrol stations began operating yesterday after the power supply came back. Almost immediately long queues started to form in front of all the petrol stations. There are three petrol stations within walking distance from my apartment and in just three hours of operation, all of them had run out of the regular petrol. When my car pulled up at the pump, I was told that I could only purchase the premium one. Super expensive but glad I did it. When I walked past the petrol stations today, only one had any petrol left. The long queues were still there though, because aside from petrol, people were busy filling up their kerosene containers too.

Long queues for petrol at the last petrol kisok which still had supply

Only diesel left

This petrol station sold everything within a day

Yup, kerosene is still very much a necessity for Akita residents because the weather is still really cold. It snowed on friday and there were light flurries on saturday. While the days are longer and warmer, the temperature still falls to 3-4 degrees in the night and stays at 6-7 degrees in the day. When the power supply was cut for two days, most of us barely got any sleep because we were all freezing our butts off in our homes.

I popped by the supermarkets too. Been forewarned that food supplies will take a while to reach us because all the ICs have been disrupted by the earthquake and most resources are being channelled into recuse efforts in our neighbouring prefectures. Went by a few hardware stores too - trying to find a decent-sized torchlight or a battery operated hp charger. Didn't manage to find any. All were sold out. In the end, I settled for a mini LED torch which operates on batteries and bought a pack of batteries too. (Had to be kiasu and grab some first. Batteries were selling out fast too.) Didn't manage to find any big candles or tealight candles too ;'(