How to help
Red Cross: Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10.
International Medical Corps: Text MED to 80888 to donate $10.
Save the Children
The Salvation Army: Text JAPAN or QUAKE to 80888 to donate $10 .
Mark Thompson's Friday afternoon coffee break ended abruptly when the building he was in began to sway.
"There was no sound," he said. "It was like being on a ship."
Thompson, who grew up in Gainesville, now works in Tokyo as an editor for the Japan Times. Despite being hundreds of miles from the epicenter, Thompson found himself in the middle of a massive earthquake as Tokyo's skyscrapers swayed side to side.
"I saw a tall skyscraper with construction cranes swaying like toys," Thompson said. "They looked like they were going to topple down."
Office workers streamed out of buildings with cell phones to their ears. Trains stopped running and taxis
became gridlocked.
Thompson returned to his office two blocks away only to rush to the street again moments later as an aftershock spread throughout the city. The building suffered minor cracks, and he went back inside to gather news and get in touch with his family.
Once Thompson made sure his wife, son and daughter were safe, he e-mailed his parents and sister back in the states.
Gainesville residents Jack Thompson, 75, and his wife, were vacationing at the beach in South Carolina. They had not turned on the TV and were not aware of the earthquake that had struck so close to their son.
Then their daughter called. "Don't turn on the television until you've read your e-mail," she told Thompson.
In one click the couple learned their son and his family were miles from the worst earthquake in Japan's recorded history.
"We are just so relieved that before we knew about the earthquake that we knew they were OK," Jack Thompson said.
As aftershocks continue and concern mounts over nuclear power plants, Mark Thompson and his news team are struggling to get updates posted.
"After it first hit, we had no idea the enormity of it," he said.
The magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck offshore Friday afternoon, and was immediately followed by a 23-foot tsunami along the northern coast of the country, causing massive damage.
Thompson spent the night at his office and doesn't think he'll be heading home anytime soon.
"Despite this being an earthquake-prone country, we were not prepared for this," he said.
Since moving to Japan 25 years ago Thompson has been through his share of tremors, but they were nothing compared to Friday's earthquake.
"It was definitely the scariest quake I've been in, for sure," he said.