Teachers worried about their homeland

TWO Japanese teachers, who have both being working at the Mercy Convent Secondary School in Tuam, are worried about the devastation in their homeland following last Friday's earthquake and tsunami.[private] Yutaka Shimizu is currently working as a substitute teacher at the school, replacing Tomoko McDermott, who is currently on leave from her position there. While Yutaka says that he has contacted his parents and they are safe, as they live in the southern area of Mie, far away from where the tsunami struck, he added that their home was still hit by a tremor, but it did not suffer any major damage. But he says that as Tomoko is from the Sendai area, who so much of the devastation took place, she did not wish to talk about it at this time. 'But she told me that she may go back to Japan to visit her family and she now knows that her sister, whom she was worried about, is safe. 'But while she is currently in a relief shelter it is close to one of the nuclear reactors, and this is a worry as they have been doing checks on people there,' he says. He added that while her parents were still in their own home they have only enough food for another two days, and there is no food or water available in their area. They were also without electricity for over two days. 'Those in the relief shelter only get a bowl of rice a day and as they can not get any petrol for their cars they can't move. There are no postal or courier services operating in that area at present,' says Yutaka. He added that he has friends near Kobe, where a major earthquake struck in 1996, and they are also worried about the situation there again. 'I have another friend in Tokyo, whose his house was damged by the tremors, but thankfully nobody in that family was injured,' he concluded.[/private]