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My husband has two half sisters in Japan, one lives in the Omori region of Tokyo and the other is from the city of Iwaki on the NE coastline. Iwaki is 100 miles south of Sendai and has been hit hard by the tsunamis. We are in contact with our sisters pretty regularly and were able to visit both in the summer of 2008. Last Thursday evening, March 10th as we were getting ready for bed, I looked at my world clock Tokyo time and said, "It's three in the afternoon tomorrow, the girls are probably at work right now". I did not realize until the next morning that it was at that moment, our sisters were rocked by the earthquake and our family in Iwaki was evacuated up the hill to an elementary school just before the first tsunami hit. My sister, her husband and two daughters escaped but lost their home and everything they own. Their car suffered a broken window but was in good enough condition to drive to Tokyo to stay with our other sister a few days later. They were extremely concerned about radioactive exposure since they were in close proximity to the nuclear plant explosions. Because of the gas ration, they were concerned they would not make it all the way to Tokyo, so they drove at night to avoid stop and go traffic of others leaving the coastal areas. Last we heard, they arrived in Tokyo just in time and are now facing the challenge of 4 adults and three teenage girls staying in a 600 sq ft. apartment and competing with other evacuees to find a new place to stay. They have no jobs, no extra clothes and are ovbiously pretty shaken up. We're hoping to send them what we can via fed ex and get funds transferred to help set them up with an apartment soon.

We have another friend from Iwaki who we just got an email from saying that he and his family are safe and were able to flee to Chiba.

posted 2 years, 2 months ago
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