On the night of March 11 when the earthquake struck, the power supply was cut off. I was at work at the time and walked home in the snow. My family was safe, but the electricity, gas and water were cut off, and the door of my room wouldn’t open because a bookshelf blocked it from within. When I eventually managed to get into the room, things were scattered so badly that there was no space to sleep. As the March sun quickly set over the townscape, I managed to secure a place to sleep with a flashlight. In the town, the lights had gone out and there was no noise from TVs and radios. There was a profound silence in the cold air after it snowed, and the engine noise and headlights of cars sometimes broke the thick silence. The starry sky was beautiful.