Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Ikufumi Takemura, who attends Wilkes University, has family living in Japan.
WILKES-BARRE – Ikufumi Takemura was in the bathroom brushing his teeth Saturday morning. He felt dizzy, and moments later hit the floor, chipping his tooth. As he stumbled back into his bedroom, he turned on the television.
That was the first time Takemura, of Saitama, Japan, learned of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck his homeland early Saturday morning.
A coincidence? Maybe, Takemura said.
The 25-year-old Wilkes University senior said that at first, he didn’t realize the extent of the destruction the massive earthquake, the largest to strike Japan in 100 years. Japan often has earthquakes, he said, so he didn’t take the reports very seriously, but as he watched the aftermath of the tremors and tsunami on television, he knew this was no ordinary earthquake.
Takemura contacted his mother in Saitama prefecture, which borders Tokyo to the north, via Skype, an internet-telephone program. After confirming his family was safe, his thoughts turned to his friends, some of them living closer to quake’s epicenter in the northern Tohoku region of Japan.
“One of them is living near from the seismic center,” Takemura said. “I was worried about him and other friends, but I knew (my) life-line was stopped after earthquake.”
He was relieved when e-mails to his friends in Japan were returned, he said, but the images of destruction he watched on American and Japanese television made it hard to sleep that night.
“The videos which I watched were so scary,” he said. “It was like a world in a movie. And I heard at least 1000 people dead. I cannot stop my tears when I think about my home country.”
Takemura said he is still worried, as earthquakes and tsunami are expected to continue striking Japan for a month. He said he is keeping in contact with his family often.
He also said he is also disappointed in himself “because I cannot do anything for them,” but hopes that sharing his story would help others learn about the continuing disaster in his homeland.