We’ve been wandering around Japan for five weeks and, while it’s been a wonderfully immersive experience, you would be fooling yourself if you thought you were doing anything more than dipping your toes in the waters.

Japan has been hit by at least 19 aftershocks, most of them of more than magnitude 6.0, after a huge earthquake ripped across the country today bringing devastation to a wide area and prompting fears of a massive death toll.

An earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale rocked Japan’s north-eastern coast today, unleashing a 33ft (10m) tsunami which swept boats, cars, buildings and tons of debris miles inland.