March 11, 2011 — Global News, Calgary
CALGARY – Phones have been ringing off the hook at the Japanese consulate in Calgary since a ferocious tsunami unleashed by Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday.
Japanese Calgarians are worried sick about their loved ones and are desperate to hear news of them, including Kayoko Ohira, whose family lives in the country. Her best friend lives in Sendai, the sea town slammed by massive tsunami waves.
“She’s living in a very severe place right now. Even if she’s fine I can’t connect with her right now.”
Staff at the Globe Fish restaurant paused Friday afternoon to make signs to put on their windows asking for donations for earthquake victims.
The Calgary-Japanese Community Association is also trying to raise funds for earthquake survivors.
Roughly 3000 Japanese citizens live in Calgary; thousands more have friends and family still in the country.
The quake was so severe its effects could even be felt 8,000 kilometres away in Alberta.
Dr. David Eaton at the University of Calgary has been keeping a close eye on seismic activity in Alberta. Motion in the earth from the 8.9 quake was detected in Alberta.
Eaton says that speaks to how huge the earthquake really was.
“That makes it the largest earthquake in over a century in Japan and the 5th largest in the last century in the world.”
Eaton says Japan could continue to feel aftershocks from this tremor for years to come.
ChristeenJesse 