California Couple Describe Quake as ‘an Angry God’

Californians Dennis and Christina Bergmann lived through the Sylmar earthquake in 1971. But it did not even compare to the temblor that violently rocked them awake this week as they slumbered in their apartment in Nishinomiya, outside Kobe, one of the areas hardest hit by Tuesday’s quake.

“We were living in Long Beach (in 1971), eating breakfast, when suddenly the building started swaying,” Christina Bergmann recalled. “But it wasn’t as long or as violent.”

“This one,” her husband added, “felt like an angry god who shook the building and just for good measure gave it another few shakes.”

The couple, both UCLA graduates raised in Southern California, came to Japan in April to teach English at Otemae Women’s College on a two-year contract. But the quake destroyed the college’s main building, damaged the campus apartment in which they live and raised questions about whether they will be able to stay.

“Who wants to learn English now?” Christina asked. “Most of the foreigners here are language instructors, and they may not even have jobs.”

Bundled up in earmuffs and leather gloves against the bitter winter cold, the pair had taken their cameras and surveyed the town’s damage by bike. The saddest sight: the virtual destruction of the quaint section of traditional Japanese homes, old wooden structures with tile roofs.

Now they were headed back to their apartment to try to salvage what they could. There wasn’t much. The new television had come crashing down, shattering. So had the bookshelves with sliding glass doors. Much of the Japanese pottery and china the pair had collected over the months was also destroyed.

If the couple had been sleeping where they normally did--between the TV and bookshelves--they would probably not have survived. For no particular reason, they had moved their futon bed the night before.

“What I remember most was the shattering of glass and the cracking of concrete,” Dennis said. “I thought, ‘Ah, there goes my $700 TV.’

“But my wife said: ‘Forget it! You’re alive!’ ”