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Washington:
A student from Japan in the US was distraught after disaster
struck her country. But she burst out with joy when she saw a
YouTube video that showed her family home as the only one standing
amid rubble.
The video also highlighted her older sister holding a sign saying
in Japanese - "we are all safe".
Akiko Kosaka, enrolled at the University of California at
Riverside, lost all hope for her family in Minami Sanriku, a
fishing village where more than half of the 17,000 residents are
missing following the massive tsunami that was triggered by a
magnitude-9 earthquake Friday.
Kosaka trawled internet for three days and she received a mail
that her youngest sister was probably safe in her school's
shelter, CNN reported Wednesday.
She feared the worst when an official at her village said that he
barely survived the tsunami.
"I didn't think they (her family) survived," Kosaka, 20, told CNN.
"I cried for three days -- Friday, Saturday, Sunday."
On Sunday night, she learnt from a friend in Japan of a 45-second
YouTube video that showed her family home as the only one standing
in the village.
The video showed her older sister holding a sign to a TV news crew
saying in Japanese "we are all safe".
Though she was happy to know about the video, she failed to find
it online despite desperately looking for it through the night.
A contact from a Japanese social networking site sent her the link
Monday morning.
She was overjoyed on seeing the short video on YouTube.
"I screamed, and my host parents woke up and they thought it was
really bad," Kosaka was quoted as saying.
"They asked what happened. And I said, 'They survived!'"
The video shows her sister standing on the family home's balcony
and asking the TV crew to pass along word to her sister in the US
that she's safe.
Kosaka said: "When I saw this video, I was very shocked by it. I
thought (the hillside community) was safe. There were houses next
to my house, but they were destroyed. That means the tsunami came
up to the house."
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