March 11, 2011, 14:46. Students at Ishinomaki Red Cross College of Nursing were having a self-study time, just before the completion ceremony.
Boom. Suddenly, the school building shook violently with a rumbling of the earth. Students who stayed in the school at the time testified that the tremors, the strongest they had ever experienced, lasted for a long time.
The magnitude 9.0 earthquake, which was later named as the Great East Japan Earthquake, occurred off the Pacific coast of the Tohoku region of Japan.

Moving to the shelter in the nick of time

At the time of the earthquake, the Ishinomaki Red Cross College of Nursing, located about 1.5 km from the sea, had about 80 students of two grades, excluding the third-year students who had already completed their graduation ceremony and a dozen staff members in the school building. Ayaka Fujita, who currently works as a nurse at Ishinomaki Red Cross Hospital, was one of them.
"Ishinomaki had experienced several major earthquakes before 2011, but the one in 2011 was very different,” she said. "At the time, I was a second-year student at the Ishinomaki Red Cross College of Nursing studying in a classroom, and after the tremors subsided, staff and students evacuated to the outdoors."
There were concerns about a tsunami, but because of the power outage, information was no longer readily available.
"I think there was probably an emergency radio broadcast, but to be honest, I don't remember much about it. At the time, most people were still using cell phones, but some of them were using smart phones, and one of them connected for a moment and said, 'Onagawa (Onagawa Town, Miyagi Prefecture), it says that 10 meters was observed.When I heard that, I felt a sense of crisis. The scale of the earthquake was totally different from the one a few years ago."
So They started to move to Minato Elementary School, a designated evacuation center located further away from the sea. On the way, we heard loud voices from people on higher ground.
"Hurry up!"
The voice urged them to rush into the elementary school, and when they looked back, we saw a black mass of water approaching behind them.

Rescue activities at evacuation centers

"When I arrived at the elementary school, I was on a slightly higher rooftop with other evacuees, but it was snowing that day and really cold. Also, there was no electricity, so it was pitch black at night. We had no idea what was going on outside. Each of us had a cell phone and we had an electronic dictionary, so we relied on the light from the LCD screen to keep our hands well-lit."

As night fell, the extent of the damage gradually became clear. However, for nursing students, the health of the residents who had taken shelter in the evacuation centers was a concern, as well as the situation outdoors.
"The teachers from the Ishinomaki Red Cross College of Nursing and the teachers from Minato Elementary School were treating people who were not feeling well. When I saw that, I knew we had to do something, too."
They began relief activities, such as rubbing the backs of cold evacuees and cleaning toilets. However, there was not much they could do, and they felt frustrated at times.
"One of the evacuees was a dialysis patient, and all we could do was to encourage him. It was really painful."

Ms. Fujita, who continues such relief activities, was herself a disaster victim. She had evacuated directly from her school and was separated from her parents and sister. Although she was able to confirm the safety of her three siblings immediately after the earthquake when cell phone service was available, she lost contact with them after the tsunami hit. She were able to reunite with the sister about 10 days after the earthquake, but not with the parents until about 20 days later. While she was unable to contact them due to the lack of cell phone service, she was finally able to find them after traveling with her sister to evacuation centers around the area.

Strong desire to continue nursing

"If we don't do it, who will?"
Ms. Fujita spent three days in an evacuation shelter until help arrived. What sustained her was her strong desire to “protect people,” which remained unwavering even under difficult circumstances.
”There were so many people who needed help, and I couldn't just let them down. If I had been on my own, I might not have been able to act, but the fact that there were other students in the same situation gave me great strength."

Ms. Fujita remains in Ishinomaki and continues to work as a nurse at Ishinomaki Red Cross Hospital, but she is also prepared for disasters.
"Disaster medicine requires the best treatment with what is available on the scene. To do that, I believe it is necessary to acquire a lot of knowledge. And I always try to provide nursing care that is close to patients and their families."