I remember it REALLY WELL because I was living in Niigata Prefecture at that time.
About 90 kilometers from Fukushima Nuclear Plant. As bad as the earthquake was, and the almost constant aftershocks; it was really the fear of the Nuclear Reactor leak that was terrifying. There were terrifying news stories coming out of the U.S. in particular showing pretty much all of the Pacific being contaminated, and no one knew the truth. Other news stories showing the winds, and at times they were blowing 'my/our' direction of where I lived 90 km away. That immediate week on top of the aftershocks (that were basically multiple earthquakes seemingly every hour or two), were that radiation threat of that going off.
Aftershocks. There was no media emphasis on how that affected you mentally. Every few hours you felt more 'aftershocks' which were actually earthquakes. They were moving all around Northern Japan, and often times right in Niigata where I was at. It was so bad that some of us had a loss of equilibrium, and you just weren't sure anymore when the earth were moving or not moving. I used to constantly look up at the light strings for movement to see when I was actually imagining it, or experiencing it again. I also remember talking to other people who would suddenly act as if was a real aftershock when it wasn't, which confirmed to me that many of us were experiencing that feeling. Daily aftershocks were a reality for a month afterwards, which continued at less repetitiveness for a year.
Another thing, we had a lot of snow on the ground everywhere in Northern Japan. That added a whole other element onto everything, as we kept losing power/electricity because of a every-other-day turn on/turn off the electricity program. The nuclear reactor effected the energy grid. People never really talk about that element either.
Additionally, it's always COLD AF in most of Japan anyways because of the poorly-heated housing.
Another thing, because of the tsunami 'took out' the trains going north of Tokyo; there was an urgency of getting supplies from Tokyo to 'Northern Japan' to replenish food shortages, and everything else. Many of these people had to travel up the 'other coast' of Japan to get to the affected areas. They usually bought up all of the supplies of where I was living in Niigata.
There were so many shortages and particularly the things you think the least about - i.e. diapers, baby food, milk, etc all of your basic amenities that were essential to families with newborn babies. Another thing was the constant aftershocks made you wonder if the train lines on our coast of Japan could be 'taken out' as well eliminating everything down to just cars moving around supplies.
Lastly...regarding the video footage. Maybe because I was living in Northern Japan throughout all of that, but pretty much all of that footage has been throughout YouTube since 3/11, along with many compilations of the footage. The above footage is just yet another compilation, more or less. But, still just as interesting as always though. That being said, there is definitely a nice narrative for understanding it better for those who weren't there though with a good flow for organization sake.
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