Montage credit.

Frequent contributor “Mystery Man,” whose real name is Brent Swancer, lives in Japan and writes he is okay.

Brent Swancer, pictured near his home, with Mt. Fuji in the background.

Swancer is the source of several postings at Cryptomundo on Japanese cryptids.

Brent emailed me:

I’m located in an area called Kanamachi, which is in Katsushika ward in the northeast area of Tokyo prefecture. I’m literally right next to the Edo river just inside Tokyo prefecture on the border with Chiba prefecture. It’s a quiet residential area outside of the main city and thankfully we weren’t hit too badly. My main fear was that the whole area is basically built up on river sediment which is not the sturdiest place in an earthquake. But we weren’t hit that bad and my house is okay.

I had been at work when the quake hit, and as a result I spent the night at my school since all of the trains were stopped and it was mass chaos trying to get a bus. It was pretty frightening, actually. By far the largest quake I’d ever felt and it turns out it was the fifth largest ever recorded. Still, I had no idea how bad it was until I turned on the TV and watched the unfolding images of carnage and destruction. Really quite startling to see all of that happening more or less right in my backyard.

Japan is pretty well prepared for earthquakes, so the death toll really could have been much worse, but it’s still pretty dire.

The nuclear reactor situation is quite bad. They’re evacuating within 10 kilometers of the reactors [update, 15 km, now that one of the reactors has exploded and four others are in danger - LC].

To top it off, there’s a warning that the rain we have coming is going to be polluted with radiation and all of the junk from the fires. We’ll see how that goes.Brent Swancer

Indeed, the extent of all of this has not been revealed. Breaking news is that more than 9,500 people are unaccounted for in Minamisanriku, Japan, according to the Kyodo News Agency reports.

In happier times: Brent and his family at Disney World, Japan.

Cryptomundo sends out all our best to our readers in Japan and around the Pacific Rim. Let us know how you are doing.