Photo/Illutration Passengers on the derailed Tohoku Shinkansen train make an escape and walk to a bus in the wee hours of March 17. (Shigetaka Kodama)

SENDAI—Yohei Nakagawa’s business trip to Sendai was running smoothly until it was interrupted by thoughts of imminent death and an escape in the dark through rice fields.

He was one of dozens of passengers who were aboard the bullet train that derailed in the March 16 earthquake.

Nakagawa, 27, who lives in Nantan, Kyoto Prefecture, boarded the 17-car train in Tokyo that was bound for the capital of Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan.

When the Tohoku Shinkansen was running along an elevated track section in Shiroishi, Miyagi Prefecture, an earthquake alert sounded on his smartphone, and the train made an emergency stop.

Five seconds later, at 11:36 p.m., Nakagawa felt the shaking from the earthquake.

His suitcase stored overhead rolled down and fell on the seats on the opposite side of the aisle.

“The tremor’s motion was up and down and so violent that I had to tightly clutch the armrests to prevent being thrown from the seat,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is it. This is the end.’”

The bullet train had jumped the track and was left tilting forward to the right.

Nakagawa said some of the about 20 passengers in the same train car dropped to the floor to brace themselves for an aftershock.

Then the long wait began in the derailed train about 2 kilometers southwest of Shiroishi-Zao Station.

Mami Yamada, a 21-year-old university student who lives in Shiogama in Miyagi Prefecture, was also on the Shinkansen after a day trip to Tokyo to see a play.

“The train swayed from side to side, and I was scared,” she recalled.

Yamada said the quake caused an immediate power outage in the train, and only emergency lights were on in the car while they waited to be rescued.

“That made me feel lonesome,” she said.

Yamada ended up chatting with other passengers and sharing words of encouragement. She also sent text messages to her mother, “I am safe.”

Shinkansen crew members handed cold protection sheets and disposable pocket warmers to the passengers.

Around 4 a.m., staff called on the 75 passengers to exit the train. With headlights, the railway workers guided the passengers along the elevated rail tracks to stairs that led them to the ground level.

Many of them remained wrapped up in blankets and were dragging suitcases.

Two buses, parked in the middle of the rice fields, were waiting to transfer the passengers to Sendai Station or Shiroishi-Zao Station.

Yamada boarded a bus around 4:30 a.m.

“It was unfortunate,” the tired-looking student said. “I will take a train or taxi home.”

Nakagawa appeared relieved when the bus he was in arrived at JR Sendai Station after 6 a.m. on March 17.

“Finally,” he said. “I’m off to work now.”

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