Quake survivor back in suburbs

Eric Berka was teaching an English class near the airport in Sendai, Japan, when the earthquake hit a week ago Friday afternoon. He was told soon after it was all right to head home to Miyagi.

“I drove away, and I missed the tsunami by two minutes,” he said. “There were all these people standing outside their place of business and their homes, and I passed them all in my car — and they're all gone.”

A week later, Berka described how he survived the quake and tsunami, after being warmly greeted by his father, Lisle's Arthur Messer, at O'Hare International Airport. He arrived with his Japanese wife, Satoko, and their 16-month-old daughter, Sophia.

Their voices were quaking when they first described what they had left behind.

“We're sad to leave all our family and friends,” Berka said. “But we're relieved to get out.”

“They keep finding bodies on the coast,” Satoko added. “Most of them are not identified yet.”

A gymnasium down the street from their home, which also houses their business, the Chicago English School, was being used to store the bodies, hundreds of them, with more being delivered daily.

Yet it was the radiation danger from the damaged nuclear reactor 60 miles away that ultimately prompted them to leave, as Berka pointed significantly to his daughter.

“So far, the Japanese government is saying it's not so bad. They're saying it's safe,” Satoko said. “It's tough to believe, because they keep changing what they say. Every day the news changes.”

“We've been getting so much mixed news, I don't know what the reality is,” Berka said.

“The ironic part is when he got to be able to talk to me, he was calling me wanting to know what's going on from American TV,” Messer said. “He was calling me to find out what was going on over there, what the real word was.”

That, however, was after a few frantic days in which they had no contact after the quake struck. Messer said it wasn't until midnight Sunday that his sisters-in-law turned up word through a network of Facebook friends that they were alive and all right, and they talked by phone the next day.

“I was thinking the worst there for a couple days,” Messer said. “I'm glad they're safe. That's the main thing.”

The family was already dealing with the death of Berka's mother and Messer's wife of 37 years, Sheila, six weeks ago, so it hasn't been that long since Berka was home. The family has lived in Mundelein, West Chicago and Wheaton, with Berka graduating from West Chicago High School, before resettling in Lisle, where the extended family is reunited for the near future. Classes at their school were scheduled to resume next month before the quake hit.

“If I had my say, I wish they'd stay here until they find out about the reactors,” Messer said.

On arrival, Berka agreed on that plan of action, saying they'll return home “when they say it's safe — and I don't know if that's going to happen. I hope it's soon enough, but...”

Satoko's parents live farther away from the quake zone and survived it as well, but declined an invitation to join them. “We couldn't get any of our Japanese friends or family to come with us,” Berka said. “They don't know what's going on. They don't think it's that bad.”

“We'll see what will happen,” Satoko added. “I hope for the best for everybody.”