Tokyo streets and shops empty – and the air is heavy with fear

After the earthquake, nerves are beginning to fray in Japan's capital following the tsunami and nuclear crisis

 Photograph: Miyoko Fukushima/Demotix/Guardian

Justin McCurry
Guardian

The dimmed lights in the normally effervescent neighbourhood of Tokyo were eerily appropriate given the mood on Monday, three days into the greatest test of Japan's resilience as a nation since the second world war.

Darkened streets, petrol rationing, a crippled public transport system and empty supermarket shelves are uncharted territory for a city usually teeming with people accustomed to convenience and abundance. While rescue teams in the Tohoku region uncover hundreds of bodies and officials struggle to cool down a third malfunctioning nuclear reactor 150 miles to the north, all the capital can do is sit tight.

After the gridlock that followed the violent shaking in the city on Friday afternoon, for a moment it seemed that Tokyo would endure little more than momentary inconvenience.

But now nerves are beginning to fray after the killer tsunami and the start of the worst nuclear crisis in the country's postwar history.

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