We had a chance to talk with Laura Walsh, a former Halifax resident who now lives in Japan, to get a glimpse of what the quake was like.  Although she lives a fair distance away from the epicenter, she tells us a bit about what happened, and what's going on there.

It's the worst earthquake in Japan since 1900, worse then the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake and everyone is rattled. For those who live in the hardest hit areas up north, everyone in the rest of the country is thinking of you.

TV has been nonstop quake/tsunami coverage. The 7.3 meter tsunami that hit Iwate was horrifying to watch. There are people stranded in the Tokyo Disneyland parking lot, trains in Tokyo weren't running for most of the night and thousands couldn't get home. Our family is safe but we have relatives up in Sendai that we haven't been in contact with yet.

The nuclear power plant in Fukushima has been shut down but they are evacuating a 10pm square radius for safety. Everyone has been mailing everyone else to check if they and their families are ok. I personally was out at a flower show with my mother in law and daughter when we got out magnitude 4. The stadium swayed for a good 20 seconds. Then it swayed again. Most people started to leave. On the way out, through a shopping centre, another one hit and all of the signs above were swaying. That was enough to scare me (Nova Scotian I am) and I hightailed it home. On the drive home, we started to realize the extent of the catastrophe. We have gps navigation in our cars in japan that can also play television, so we watched the news on the way home. People here are just shocked, even though earthquakes happen all the time.

I just hope that everyone keeps Japan in their thoughts.

Laura Takenaka(nee Walsh) Aichi, Japan