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All of these people are okay. From left: my aunt, my uncle, me, Larry, and my Obachan (Oct. 2009, Nara, Japan) |
My uncle and cousin work in Osaka. They felt the earthquake pretty strongly in Osaka and my uncle's office building was evacuated. That's saying something, considering Osaka is about as far from Tokyo as Philadelphia is to Boston, respectively - a distance of around 250 miles. My aunt and Obachan (grandmother) didn't feel a thing at their home in Nara. (Again, for relative distance, if Osaka was Boston, Nara would be just a bit north of where we live in Salem, about 18 miles).
My other cousin was at work in Tokyo when the earthquake hit. She sent me the following email at about 4PM EST today after we hadn't heard from her:
Hi, Keiko.
Thanks for the email. I'm OK. And all my family members are OK.
It happend around 3pm here in Japan, and I just got home after a long wait around 2am! As you may have already seen or heard, trains started to run and will run all night in Tokyo and that was why I managed to come home.
My phone's still not working, but I managed to communicate with my dad around 4pm once through my cell and he said the earthquare wasn't that bad compared to what happened in Tokyo.
It was SCARY. I was praying all through the shakes in my office.
Anyhow, things seem a lot worse over in Sendai area....I hope things will get better soon.
Please tell your family we are all OK.While I'm very lucky and blessed that my family is safe, I know there are many more worrying about their loved ones; NHK was reporting at least 750 missing as of 11PM EST tonight. Google has set up a Crisis Response Page with a People Finder section.
There's not much I can do here from home, so I made a donation to the International Red Cross.
How can you help? Cash donations are really the best lines of support for this kind of disaster relief. There are multiple organizations accepting donations specifically for Japan's earthquake and tsunami relief. Here's a list of organizations accepting donations for disaster relief in Japan.
Thoughts and prayers for the people of Japan.
EDIT: I've added a Donation Button on my sidebar that links directly to the American Red Cross. Here it is below if you'd like to snag it for your own blog, along with the plain text link of where it needs to point:
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| Link to: http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_src=RSG000000000&s_subsrc=RCO_FrontPagePanel |
9 comments:
I've contacted most of my friends in Japan; I'm still waiting to hear from a few but so far, all seems okay. I used to live in Oita-Ken so that's quite a distance away of course. However, some of the friends that were in Oita have since moved to Honshu so I'm more concerned for them. And for the friends who lived on the coast. Glad to hear that your family is all right Keiko. It's so frightening to see those images on TV and know that you are so far away and unable to do much to help. Much love to you and yours. I hope your family and friends stay safe.
glad your family is okay. it is so sad to hear and see the devastation there. my heart goes out to the people there. thanks for posting the red cross donation link.
Glad that your family is okay!
I have a brother in Tokyo, so we were pretty worried about him yesterday too. So scary, and such a terrible thing to happen to all the people affected.
Glad to know that your family is okay.
I am so, so glad that your family is all ok. B"H!!!
Glad your family is OK! Two guys in my office are married to Japanese girls; one's inlaws are from around Tokyo -- had heard from her brother & his wife by Friday afternoon, but not her parents yet. The other's inlaws are from Sendai, & they had not heard from anyone there. :(
I am so glad to hear your family is safe. Thinking of them during this time!
I'm so glad your family is okay. It's just crazy to read the news reports. You never think anything like that will happen.
Glad to hear your family is safe. This is so scary. The images are haunting. The scale of this is unimaginable.
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