Quake survivor from Lake Forest on quest to leave Japan
The world seems small when a suburban family must work to rescue a young teacher caught in Sendai near the areas of worst devastation from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Like thousands of young Americans, 27-year-old Hannah Nho of Lake Forest went to Japan about three years ago to teach English to Japanese schoolchildren with the JET Programme.
Through the determination of her two sisters in Los Angeles and London, Hannah is on her way to a working airport today. Her eventual destination is Seoul, Korea, where she will stay with friends and relatives and decide whether she can return to Japan and her job.
When the earthquake hit on Friday, Hannah was home sick in her apartment, rather than at work. She hid under her couch while the earth shook, perhaps for just five minutes. Right afterward she was able to send a text message that she was alive to her sister, Nina Shaw, in London. Then her family used Facebook to follow messages Hannah was able to get to friends in Japan. After 36 hours they were finally able to talk with her Sunday.
After the first night in a crowded shelter without toilet facilities, Hannah biked for an hour to Miyagino JHS, the school where she taught. There she found not only familiar faces but also water, food, power, and Internet and phone access.
The shelter had only radio for information, and Hannah's Japanese is sketchy, said June Nho from Los Angeles. For a while she did not know about the tsunami at all, and “nuclear” is not in her Japanese vocabulary.
But her family in the United States and England did not sit still and wait for things to happen.
“On Sunday, I learned that the French and the German governments asked for nonessentials to leave, and so we started laying the groundwork from my desk in Los Angeles and my sister's kitchen in London for Hannah to leave as well,” said June, 31, who calls Hannah her little sister. CNN planned to interview June this morning about Hannah's experiences.
By Tuesday, June had learned that the Yamako bus company was driving 17 buses from Sendai to Yamako every day — first come, first served. Hannah stood in a cold line of very well-behaved Japanese and got a seat on one of those buses. And a friend working online got Hannah the last ticket for the day on a bus from Yamako to Niigata, where her sisters have had a plane ticket waiting for a few days, thanks to Orbitz.
June, a producer of commercials who is used to getting things done, helped manage this effort by calling friends in the Army, Navy, State Department and the American Embassy.
But the family is disappointed that the U.S. government does not seem to be giving the help to its citizens in Japan that other countries are and has not issued an evacuation order. The European Union, for example, hired a bus to evacuate Finnish citizens from the same area where Hannah was.
“My fiance and I considered booking a plane to Tokyo, driving the 18 hours to Sendai and getting my sister,” said June. “But I had hope that my government would be able to help her now. Now, I wish I had gotten on that flight.”
Taking matters into their own hands is part of the Nho family heritage.
When June and Hannah's grandmother was pregnant with the girl who grew up to be their mother, Sunny Nho, she got a tip that things were getting bad in wartime North Korea. With two children, she walked from Pyongyang to Seoul.
“Those who hesitated were left behind and lost to us,” is the message that June Nho continued to give her sister in Sendai.
“I feel like she's been dealing with a lot of shock,” June said. “She is more worried about paying her utility bills than getting out of the country. I told her there's no utility bill to pay.”
Hannah was also concerned about leaving before her JET contract is up in August, but the continuing earthquakes unnerved her, said June.
“Thank God this is happening in Japan,” said June. “They're very calm and they all work together. But it's hard because she's surrounded by Japanese, and they are doing what they are told.”
June got advice from friends in the U.S. military about which route her sister should take to find passable roads. Niigata seemed the most logical airport to head for, with Tokyo experiencing food shortages, rolling blackouts and nuclear fears, said June.
“At first she just felt safe. She didn't feel like there was a need to go anywhere,” said June, adding that changed with the aftershocks and radiation fears because Sendai is only about 50 miles from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant sparking the family's fears.
They had to weigh whether the journey was more dangerous than staying in Sendai, June said.
“My friend in the Navy told me, if she is safe she should stay, if she can get to Niigata, she should go.”