Scale of destruction leaves nation reeling

“I never experienced such a strong earthquake in my life,’’ said Toshiaki Takahashi, 49, an official in Sendai City, a port city in northeastern Japan and the closest major city to the epicenter of the record quake that hit the country yesterday. “I thought it would stop, but it just kept shaking and shaking, and getting stronger.’’

The force of the quake was felt in Tokyo, more than a hundred miles from the epicenter, which was located offshore. In the capital, the quake unnerved even those who have learned to live with swaying skyscrapers.

“I thought I was going to die,’’ Tokyo marketing employee Koto Fujikawa told the Associated Press. “It felt like the whole structure was collapsing.’’

Fujikawa, 28, was riding a monorail when the quake hit and had to later pick her way along narrow, elevated tracks to the nearest station.

Yesterday, television images showed huge waves roaring in land in Japan. The floodwaters, thick with floating debris, pushed aside heavy trucks as if they were toys.

The spectacle was all the more remarkable for being carried live on television, even as the waves engulfed flat farmland that offered no resistance. The tsunami could be seen scooping up every vessel in the ocean off Sendai and churning everything inland. The gigantic wave swept up a ship carrying more than 100 people, Kyodo News reported.

By this morning, Japan was filled with scenes of desperation, as stranded survivors called for help and rescuers searched for people buried in rubble.

Kazushige Itabashi, an official in Natori City, one of the areas hit hardest by the tsunami, said that several districts in an area near Sendai airport were annihilated.

Rescuers found 870 people in one elementary school this morning and were trying to reach 1,200 people in the junior high school, closer to the water. There was no electricity and no water for people in shelters.

According to the Mainichi newspaper, about 600 people were on the roof of a public grade school, in Sendai City. By this morning, Japanese Self Defense Forces and firefighters had evacuated about 150 of them.

On the rooftop of Chuo Hospital in the city of Iwanuma, doctors and nurses were waving white flags and pink umbrellas, according to TV Asahi. On the floor of the roof, they wrote “Help’’ in English, and “Food’’ in Japanese. The television reporter, observing the scene from a helicopter, said, “If anyone in the city hall office is watching, please help them.’’

The station also showed scenes of people stranded on a bridge, cut off by water on both sides near the mouth of the Abukuma River in Miyagi Prefecture.

Japanese were frantically searching for their relatives.

Fumiaki Yamato, 70, was in his second home in a mountain village outside of Sendai when the earthquake struck. He spoke from his car as he was driving toward Sendai trying to find the rest of his family. While it usually takes about an hour to drive to the city, parts of the road were impassible.

“I’m getting worried,’’ he said as he pulled over to take a reporter’s call. “I don’t know how many hours it’s going to take.’’ His cellphone battery was dying, so he ended the call in case his family was able to reach him.

Japanese residents, accustomed to earthquakes, were disturbed by this one’s 8.9 magnitude— and the more than 100 aftershocks, many of them equivalent to major earthquakes.

Tokyo was brought to a near standstill. The city’s train system was halted, choking a daily commuter flow of more than 10 million people. Tens of thousands of people were stranded with the rail network down, and the streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.

Tens of thousands of people milled at train stations, roamed the streets or hunkered down at 24-hour cafes, hotels, and government offices offered as emergency accommodations.

The city set up 33 shelters in City Hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many planned to spend the night at 24-hour cafes, hotels and offices.

Jesse Johnson, a native of Nevada who lives in Chiba, north of Tokyo, was eating at a sushi restaurant with his wife when the quake hit.

“At first it didn’t feel unusual, but then it went on and on. So I got myself and my wife under the table,’’ he told the AP.

“I’ve lived in Japan for 10 years, and I’ve never felt anything like this before. The aftershocks keep coming. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t know whether it’s me shaking or an earthquake.’’