Sendai Question?

I'm quite confused. I know Sendai is quite big but was the whole area really destroyed by Tsunami/earthquake or only the ones near the coastline? For instance, was the Sendai station reached by water waves? XD

I'm asking because a friend plans to go there in May this year.

Only the coastal areas (a lot of farm land) was flooded. Central Sendai with Sendai Station is 10 kilometers from the coast and was not reached by the tsunami. The earthquake did cause quite a lot of damage, but quite far from the degree seen in Kobe in 1995.

lastmockingbird,

As Uji suggested, the tsunami itself didn't hit Sendai Station. However, surrounding roads are damaged, the recovery of life-line (water supply, gas, electricity) in the city is yet to come, and supplies are short with gasoline at the top.

Plus the characteristics of this incident is that the damage on the coastal areas were swept away by the seawater, therefore making it difficult to find lost relatives and friends or to identify bodies and belongings. New problems are being discovered each day, as well. So the final amount of damage is yet to be known, especially the final number of death.

But the internet and media tells us that citizens are cooperating with each other working hard to maintain a decent life.

That's good to hear. The media here has sent the message as if the whole Sendai is gone and wiped out off the map. My friend was just worried because she already reserved at Sunplaza hotel.

It's also good news that Japanese people are taking this seriously yet calmly. From the bottom of my heart, I really pray Japan would recover soon and no tragedy like this will even happen again to any country.

Thank you for the responses!

lastmockingbird I know that you mean well but you need to be more realistic.
Earthquakes, huge fires, tornadoes, wars, volcanic eruptions, wars are all part of life and they will happen again and again in our life time.

So you need to think more about how you could reduce damage rather than how you could avoid natural disasters, is what Monkey See is trying to say, I'm sure. By the way, Japan hasn't suffered war for 65 years.

Note that bus and subway services have started partially again.

Uco, I meant that some of these natural disasters + wars are happening all around the world..this country has a flood, another a tornado, another this or that... .I live in Western Canada and we have quakes from times to times....the big one could happen anytime and we sure aren't ready at all.

Monkey see,

Well, I just thought that that may be too encouraging (sarcasm intended) to hear for some people. At least for now. Whatever.