This story hits the "epicenter" of my heart..

[Aqua2213]

I read this story last night and saw the beautiful picture of the teacher and her young student and I knew that it was probable that the little girl may be a victim of the tsunami too.
I was sooo sad looking at the picture, I had to move on to other things.
My heart aches for the victims of the Japan disaster... :innocence:

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Richmond, Va. (AP) - A Virginia couple is mourning the death of their daughter after learning that her body was found in disaster-ravaged Japan, where she had been teaching English.

Taylor Anderson, 24, could be the first known American victim in the Japan disaster as authorities continue the daunting task of finding and identifying almost 13,000 people believed to be missing.

Anderson's family said in a statement that the U.S. Embassy in Japan called them Monday to tell them she was found in Ishinomaki, a city about 240 miles (390 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

Officials with U.S. Embassy in Japan and the State Department could not immediately confirm whether she was the first known U.S. victim in Japan. Another 25-year-old man is presumed dead after being swept into the ocean March 11 by a swell from the tsunami on the northern California coast.

"We would like to thank all those whose prayers and support have carried us through this crisis," said Andy and Jean Anderson, who live in Chesterfield County south of Richmond. "Please continue to pray for all who remain missing and for the people of Japan. We ask that that you respect our privacy during this hard time."

Jean Anderson said her daughter was last seen after the earthquake riding her bike away from an Ishinomaki elementary school after making sure parents picked up their children. A tsunami struck shortly after the earthquake, completely wiping out homes and other structures.

Friends and relatives used Facebook and other social networks to spread the word about the search for Taylor. Officials first told the family last Tuesday that their daughter had been located, but the Andersons learned that night that the information was incorrect.

Taylor Anderson had a lifelong love of Japan and began studying the language in middle school. She moved overseas after graduating from Randolph-Macon College in 2008 to teach in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme.

She taught in eight schools in Ishinomaki, in the Miyagi prefecture on Japan's northeast coast. During her stay there she developed a love for her students and for the Japanese people, her mother said.

She was scheduled to return to the United States in August.

In this July 17, 2010 photo provided the Anderson family, Taylor Anderson, right, poses with one of her students in Ishinomaki, Japan, where she taught English. Anderson's family said in a statement that the U.S. Embassy in Japan on Monday, March 21, 2011 informed them by telephone of the discovery of their 24-year-old daughter's body. (AP Photo/Anderson Family)

 

[mongrol]

Thank you for your post, and I agree with just how sad and tragic this entire event is .. which is going to continue for sometime yet, it seems.

This story is so sad .. :rainyday:

My heart is in Japan.. and I know with all of that heart that Japan's wonderful creative and energetic spirit will bring some wonderful things out of this most terrible situation.

It has already begun.

 

[rbtroy]

The beloved Japan

All my love is for the beloved Japan, thatt always was my childhood dream, everything about Japan evokes me my entire childhood.
I can't express all my feelings, to wrote that: "I'm sad isn't enough", even my chilean neighbor's fiancee can't tell me what she is feeling after that catastrophe.

I am Jew, I'm praying to my God for them, the beloved Japan.

 

[guy]

Tragic, yes. But the real tragedy is that this is far from the only story.

For a good idea on the extent of the damage:

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/03/japan-earthquake-two-weeks-later/100034/

Another tragic story:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/japan/110324/japan-ookawa-tsunami-earthquake

There have also been countless stories on TV of children who were at school, caught in the tsunami, watching helplessly as their friends and teachers were swept into the sea; mothers and fathers unable to help their children; and so on. One in particular: a man had already lost his mother and his wife before the earthquake, and the tsunami took his father and his three daughters; he is now the last surviving member of his family, and at the funeral, he looked too lifeless to even cry.

 

[Ceewan]

I almost felt like a shit for thanking that post guy. It is the truth though. This may be the worst natural disaster in the last millenium or more. You just do not lose an estimated 27,000 people to a natural disaster. Not all at once, not in the blink of an eye. Within 24 hours Japan has become a nation of grief and mourning. I doubt the shock has even fully set in yet.

Thanks so much for the links. They help me commiserate with the Japanese people to some degree. Sometimes this feels as unreal to me as it must to some of them. I can not imagine how they do not merely sob and wail. It is probably what I would do, it probably would be all I could do. I have experienced uncontrollable grief before when someone close to me has died but I cannot possibly.......

words fail me.

 

[chippy]

Thank you for posting that story. A good friend of mine lives in a Tokyo suburb, and has been staying with me for a week now as a relief from the tragedy in Japan. She's been teaching English and teaching teachers how to teach English there for many years, and she too was planning on this being her last year there.
It would be close to impossible to accurately convey the emotional turmoil she has gone and continues to go through: not only do I lack the words, but I'm quite sure I lack the perspective as well. She was very well-connected (she also teaches and performs Romani belly-dancing) to a great number of people throughout the island, and indeed some of her friends are still out of contact.
Japan's residents feel the brunt of this, foreign friends feel it next, but surely the worst of all is to lose a family member to this horrific and ongoing disaster. My friend has no idea what her home looks like, but there are still aftershocks and rolling blackouts: this is by no means over yet, and the long-term ramifications of the Fukushima radiation scare me too much to even discuss.

I live so close to Japan, but even so, my friend's presence here with me makes this hit much closer to home. My heart goes out to Japan and to all those affected by this. I'm rambling, but that is about all I can manage at this point. My friend is also a writer, and has spent her recuperation time documenting day-by-day her experience. She's a very good writer, and should she bring it to publication, I will certainly let you all know about it.

 

[Rhinosaur]

I almost felt like a shit for thanking that post guy. It is the truth though. This may be the worst natural disaster in the last millenium or more. You just do not lose an estimated 27,000 people to a natural disaster

Horrific as it may be, a little bit of perspective is needed here; 250,000+ were lost in the 2004 Indian Ocean 'quake and tsunami!

 

[Ceewan]

Horrific as it may be, a little bit of perspective is needed here; 250,000+ were lost in the 2004 Indian Ocean 'quake and tsunami!

I actually did not realize that tsunami was that bad in 2004, although I knew it was bad. To be honest I just had so much on my plate at that time I did not have room to care about anything else.

So I stand corrected, wiki says 230,000 death in fourteen countries from that 2004 tsunami. That would make it more devastating than this. I was wrong. This earthquake was just more devastating than anything else I had been aware of up until now. I feel so much better knowing I was mistaken. Not.

 

[Aqua2213]

Horrific as it may be, a little bit of perspective is needed here; 250,000+ were lost in the 2004 Indian Ocean 'quake and tsunami!

Also the quake in Haiti on January 12. 2010 was pretty bad too. The Haitian government reported that an estimated 316,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless.

Perpectives aside, all earthquakes that cause major disruption are desvastating. :scared:

 

[Ceewan]

Also the quake in Haiti on January 12. 2010 was pretty bad too. The Haitian government reported that an estimated 316,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless.

Perpectives aside, all earthquakes that cause major disruption are desvastating. :scared:

Yeah but they...they were just Haitians. Okay, I guess I shouldn't go there.

I actually was involved in some relief work on that one but I never realized the body count was that high. I still am involved in some occasional relief work efforts for that country, to be honest. I don't read the news or watch it on the TV, so sometimes I can be pretty insulated from such horrific details. I am just more informed and interested in the events in Japan because of this forum.

I agree though, these earthquakes were seriously bad news for all involved.

 

[zaldar]

Well I'll be the evil guy and say that as this is a fellow first world country I find it more devastating....

I'll also be the evil guy and say that man...I wish the japanese girl in the pic was an under 15 idol.....

ok now you have someone to flame to get your mind off of tragedy





Your welcome




iripi:

 

[guy]

A big difference between the Indian Ocean/Haitian quakes and the Japanese quake is that, as a highly developed country, Japanese had access to incredible amounts of technology (high quality digital and video cameras, Internet, YouTube, Twitter, etc) and coverage was so extensive that in many areas, the world watched the tsunamis happened live.

For the Indian Ocean and Haitian quakes, while not insignificant in the least, it took some time to get information flowing (sending reporters with cameras in, etc), so a lot of the media coverage dealt with the aftermath of the disasters. There wasn't much by way of "before and after" imagery, except for satellite images which don't really do justice in conveying the true depth of the destruction.

But from the Japanese quake, there is no end to the visual information that was captured. And we were not only able to see the before and after (using satellite imagery and other services like Google StreetView), we also saw the tsunami as it happened, and more often than not, from the perspective of the individuals who were caught in the disaster. It adds another dimension: we don't simply recognize that people's lives were affected, we understand (through visual information) exactly how their lives were affected.



It's similar to why the image of the 9/11 attacks on the WTC towers are so vivid/acute in the minds of Americans. The 9/11 attacks were far from the first "national tragedies" (the Unabomber, school shootings, natural disasters, etc), and there have been other disasters since then. Almost immediately after the first plane struck the North Tower, reporters and individuals surrounded the WTC area to record video and try to understand what had happened. Which meant that (unlike most other disasters) shortly after, when the second plane struck the South Tower, all of America watched as it happened live.



The Indian Ocean and Haitian earthquakes aren't any more or less tragic than the Japanese earthquake. The only useful difference is that in the Japanese quake, the prevalence of technology has allowed more people to understand exactly what happens before, during, and after a large-scale natural disaster; and the reason that is important is because it provides us with information on how to better prepare ourselves to handle these kinds of disasters in the future, in terms of evacuation, immediate aftermath, and long-term recovery.

 

[zaldar]

As well the trade towers were an attack, an act of war really, by an outside source and brought down what many of us see as a symbol of our capitalistic way of life (which was the reason they were chosen as targets) that symbolyism resonated in suprizing ways. In ashville where I live, one of the few last crazy outposts of communism in America, there were people who openly claimed to be happy about the attacks (and believe other things to crazy even for the internet really) as it took out a symbol of capitalism.

As well, as a fellow first world country America and the west feels more of a connection to Japan than it does to hati and india. Unfortunate or not (of course it is) we feel more for rich "whiteish" people than poor "afracanish" people.

 

[donhere2004]

this will bring a tear to your eyes, Pray for Japan - Angel by Jackie Evancho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-sYOdN560c