Marylanders With Ties To Japan React To Natural Disaster
BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Absolutely incredible pictures have been coming out of Japan over the last 20 hours, and the danger is still very real. Japan issued a state of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants. So far, there has not been a radiation leak. Thousands are evacuated as workers try to get the reactors under control and prevent a meltdown.
Weijia Jiang caught up with Marylanders worried about their loved ones overseas.
Caught up in the devastation. At Japan Karate and Judo Center in Owings Mills, Master Shunji Watanabe says he's trying to focus but his heart is in Japan, where many family members still live.
Along with the rest of the world, Watanabe woke up to see terrifying images.
"Just saw the pictures over, over, over. The tsunami," he said. "Surprised, shocked, and scared watching the whole thing wash up."
Watanabe says he's been trying to reach family in Tokyo all day Friday, but the phone lines remain busy, so he's not sure if all his relatives are safe.
"We have brother, sister, I can't contact. Wife too-she have no one to talk to," Watanabe said.
Long-time Baltimore business owner Hiroshi Kiyota can empathize. He spoke to his 27-year-old son on Friday morning. His son lives in Tokyo, where aftershocks from the historic earthquake caused fear of the worst.
But Kiyota is worried about his extended family in the hardest hit area of Sendai. That's where his mother is from.
He knows the danger after living through several earthquakes growing up there.
"When they are coming you can tell, sometime you can't move because its shaking so much, but we are used to it so many years," Kiyota said.
Local exchange student Chiya Saito lives near the ocean in Japan. After not being able to reach her family for hours, she finally received this text on her phone: "Your father is at the work place and I'm at home."
"I was like, 'Oh my goodness, my parents are fine.' I was so relieved and I cried," Saito said.
And one man who grew up in Washington, D.C. sent WJZ pictures of Tokyo's Narita International Airport, where he says it shook too from severe aftershocks. Now thousands are stranded.
"Everyone was shaken up pretty badly," Joel Cherkis said on the phone from Narita International Airport. "You can see the stress in everybody. It was a very restless night. I found one of the columns that were supporting the ceiling and literally was holding on the columns and people."
Cherkis says his and many other flights are delayed indefinitely, so he continues to wait. Even more harrowing, of course, are those waiting to hear from or reconnect with loved ones.
