Details about family members and homes in Japan continued to trickle through to Japanese in Colorado on Saturday as massive cellphone traffic overloading the airwaves was clearing slightly.
The news ranged from good to bad, but people still said they felt relief as they were able to end the wondering.
“My dad’s voice was better than I expected,” Masayo DesMarais said. “I thought they were going to be crying and all that, but they are so happy that they are OK. It made me so happy to hear my parents’ voice.”
DesMarais lives in Denver. Her parents and other relatives live in Sendai, the heavily hit city about 80 miles from the epicenter of Friday’s earthquake.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw all the news on Friday morning,” DesMarais said. “I tried to call right away, and I couldn’t contact anybody.”
It wasn’t until after 2 p.m. Friday that she managed to get through.
She learned her family was alive, but she also learned that the home she grew up in had been swept away in the tsunami.
Her parents are staying in her dad’s office farther inland in the city. They have no electricity but had just enough time before the tsunami hit to take their dog, some water and a few changes of clothing.
“It’s very important to stay positive,” DesMarais said. “They don’t know exactly yet what they’re going to do, but you can’t think too much about the future yet.”
DesMarais said that as the chaos calms down in Japan, she hopes fundraising efforts locally can start up to send people the necessities of water, fruits and other food.
For Hiroko Hung, the relief of knowing her family was well Friday quickly disappeared Saturday morning as she awoke to news of crisis at a nuclear plant near her family’s home in Saitama.
“They are close to the plant; I don’t know if they had to leave because of (the) explosion,” Hung said.
“My sister yesterday said they have water and electricity in their condo but no gas,” Hung said. “It had been turned off because of fear of explosion.”
Her niece, Asami Ishiwata, who lives farther south in Shizuoka, later was able to confirm that their relatives were in no immediate danger.
“We live more than 30 kilometers (19 miles) away, so we don’t need to evacuate,” Ishiwata said. “But still it depends on the winds if they change it.”
More than 200,000 people within 12 miles of the plant have been evacuated.
In Shizuoka, Ishiwata felt shaking from the earthquake, but at more than 400 miles from the epicenter of the quake, she said she had been through worse.
“There was only a little bit of shaking where I am, so we were OK,” Ishiwata said. “And I talked to my mom in Saitama after about three or four hours, when calls finally went through, and they were fine.”
She said even though she is in Japan, she too is still waiting on details of the damage at the family home in Saitama.
“I’m very lucky everybody’s OK,” Hung said. “But it shows you how powerful tsunamis are. People have so much technology, but you can’t use it. You can’t beat nature.”
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372 or yrobles@denverpost.com
