Sophomore Tomiko Tamashiro Pardo lived in Japan for about six years before moving to the U.S. at the age of seven. Nine years later, on the morning of March 11, Tamashiro was woken by her father and led to the television where the Japanese news was broadcasting one of the most severe earthquakes in history.
Thousands of concerned families have been trying to contact their relatives and friends in Japan since the devastating tsunami and 9.0-magnitude earthquake. More than 12,700 people have been confirmed dead and 14,700 have been reported missing. On top of the sweeping destruction of homes and buildings throughout northwest Japan, a nuclear crisis has overwhelmed the country’s ability to supply food and water to its inhabitants.
“It was sad to see the pictures of places that were destroyed,” Tamashiro said. “There’s only so much to take in.”
Tamashiro has a cousin in Tokyo who “only experienced a power outage” before evacuating her home.
According to Tamashiro, the Japanese government’s reaction and response was not as quick as she and her family had hoped for.
Since the crisis, the media has been publishing articles that show doubts about the amount of effort the Japanese government has been putting into relief.
“I mean, I can see why,” sophomore Kekoa Yamaguchi said. “There’s a lot of stuff to fix and it’s going to take a while.”
Yamaguchi’s relatives live in Narita, which is a city in close proximity with Tokyo. “They had a dog and it was freaking out before and after the earthquake,” he said.
Yamaguchi first heard the news when his father was talking on the phone with Yamaguchi’s uncle. His relatives “felt it but they weren’t hurt,” he said.
Though Yamaguchi’s relatives were not critically injured by the quake, they have been told to rub iodine on their skin and take potassium iodide pills as a precaution to prevent radiation poisoning.
The purpose of the pills is to temporarily shut down the thyroid gland in order to halt the production of thyroid hormones. If taken prior to receiving radiation, according to WebMD, the pill will “counter the effect of radioactive iodine on the thyroid” and prevent the development of thyroid cancer. However, the pills’ effects are only limited to the thyroid and do not prevent radiation damage to other organs.
Tamashiro’s family donated money to the Japanese embassy to help with relief efforts.
“I definitely like seeing everyone giving and helping out as much as they can,” she said.
“What else is there to do?” she added, saying that Japan has “gotten as many people out as they were able, the damage is done and you can’t avoid nature—it’s pretty powerful.”
Junior Zharlene Salvador’s cousins were living in Nagano, “only three hours away from Sendai,” when the earthquake occurred.
Sendai was the nearest major city to the earthquake. The city’s airport was swept away by the tsunami and the footage of the destruction was filmed and broadcasted to demonstrate the power and speed of the oncoming waves.
“I saw the news and it just hit me: oh my god, my cousins are there,” Salvador said.
Though Salvador’s cousins reportedly suffered no major injuries, “They got no sleep for 48 hours because of the aftershocks,” she said. Salvador also added that her cousins have not yet evacuated their home.
Despite the disaster, Salvador said the Japanese sense of community would aid the nation’s recovery.
“They always get united in hard times,” she said. Salvador went on to say that if Japan was able to recover from World War II, then it would be able to recover from its current situation as well.
“It might take eight to 10 years to recover, but my cousins said that the [Japanese] government said it would take a year,” Salvador added. “I’m scared for my family, but I have faith in the [Japanese] government.”
Japan is located within the “Ring of Fire,” an area where a majority of the world’s largest earthquakes occur.
“So Japan’s used to earthquakes,” Salvador said, “but there’s always going to be catastrophes … it’s pretty dangerous.”