People walk by a ruined bus stop thatwas crushed by part of fallen outer wall of a nearby building in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture, Japan, after one of the largest earthquakes on record slammed Japan’s eastern coast.
(AP Photo/Kyodo News)Southern Adventist University student Ashley Uyeda woke up Friday morning and headed to take a midterm exam, not knowing that an earthquake and tsunami had devastated the country where she was raised and her mother still lives.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” said the 23-year-old nursing student who just returned from Japan on Monday.
Hundreds were dead or missing in Japan on Friday, following one of the largest earthquakes in the country’s history and the accompanying tsunami, according to The Associated Press. The quake, which hit about 12:45 a.m. EST, was centered off the northeast coast of Japan, close to the city of Sendai.
Uyeda, who was born in the United States but raised in Japan, said she got an e-mail from her sister at 1:30 a.m. Friday, saying they were fine and not to worry, but she didn’t read it until past 10 a.m., after she had taken her exam.
Her siblings – a sister and brother – also live in the United States but are visiting their mother in Chiba, Japan, said Uyeda. Chiba is a district in the Tokyo area about 250 miles south of Sendai.