As earthquake aftershocks and the threat of nuclear meltdowns continue to rock the Japanese island of Honshu, Kent’s sister city of Tamba appears to have ridden out the storm intact.<\/p>\n
Minako Fushida, a resident of Tamba who hosted this reporter in 2008, reported Friday that they were safe.<\/p>\n
“I and my mom are living very far from the center point of the earthquake,” she said in an e-mail. My family is fine.”<\/p>\n
Watching the devastation unfold on television, she added, “we are really shocked.”<\/p>\n
Tamba is located approximately 380 miles southwest of Sendai, the city of 1 million that was hit the hardest by an offshore earthquake that measured 8.9 on the Richter Scale.<\/p>\n
The City of Tamba has been a sister city to Kent for nearly 40 years. The two cities participate in student and cultural exchanges annually.<\/p>\n
The Puget Sound area has many cultural and economic ties to Japan. For people who are trying to locate relatives near the quake site, the International Committee of the Red Cross<\/a> has established a Web site to help them reconnect with loved ones.<\/p>\n