Tokyo residents wonder when city will return to normal

Tokyo is different now, and Hasegawa, 45, thinks it might be different for a long time. His wife went grocery shopping on Wednesday, arriving before the doors opened, and 100 people were waiting in line. Now his train comes every five minutes, the platforms are empty, and the men who used to sprint as the doors closed no longer do so. The Starbucks in his office building’s lobby, normally open until 7 p.m., now closes at 4. Some colleagues go home after lunch. Some don’t come in at all. They worry about radiation and Japan’s emerging energy shortage as a result of damaged power plants. Hasegawa thinks Tokyo will have rolling blackouts for months, maybe longer.

“The paradigm has changed all at once,” he said, and he explained that he was ready for it, that Tokyo is his home. But then he told a reporter visiting his office: “You should leave Tokyo. If you stay here, this summer you will have to do your business without air conditioning.”…

Hasegawa’s family now sleeps with the heat turned off, despite the winter chill. The lobbies of many office buildings in Tokyo’s financial district are dark. The famous neighborhoods with riotous neon signs now look dim. In just five days, the city’s metabolism has dropped, as if in hibernation, preparing for a long fight ahead.