Filipinos in Tokyo ask for prayers after quake, tsunami

Filipinos in Japan are asking for prayers in the wake of a magnitude-8.9 quake and tsunami that devastated the country Friday. Enrique Linaja Gonzaga, a native of Negros now working as a chef in Tokyo, said the quake was so bad it left him trembling. “Please pray for us, every now and then the earth shakes. I was in the midst of a meeting when it happened. The trains have stopped, traffic is everywhere. Thank God there’s Internet connection in the coffee shop where we are now," he said shortly after the quake, according to a report on Negros-based news site Visayan Daily Star. The report said he also posted photos of crowds gathered on the streets of Tokyo after the quake on his Facebook wall. Gonzaga said Friday was supposed to be a fair day, “but, after the quake, it’s eerily cold." Sheryl Limsiaco, a Bacolod native who lives in Tokyo with her family, told a local radio station they were so scared because the earthquake was so strong. Limsiaco said this was the first time this has happened in the nine years that she has lived in Tokyo. Another Filipina staying in Tokyo for the last 20 years described the quake and the aftershocks as the worst she had experienced. "Cristina," who is married to a Japanese working in the Egyptian Embassy in Tokyo, said mobile phone services were spotty after the quake. "Ito ang pinakamalala. Hindi ko malaman kung sino ang tatawagin kong panginoon (This is the most devastating I've experienced. I did not know which God to call on)," she said in an interview on dzBB radio Friday afternoon. She said she joined many Tokyo residents in proceeding to a school turned into an evacuation center. When the first quake struck at about 2 p.m. (Manila time), she said everything in the house fell down. "Lahat na gamit namin sa bahay nabasag. Tinatawagan namin ang line, di makontak. Mga cell phone namin di makontak (All of our items in the house fell down. We tried to use our phones but cell phone service was virtually useless)," she said. On the other hand, the Negros Japan Human Resource Exchange Association, Inc. (NJHREAI) said there was no report any of some 400 skilled workers from Negros Occidental and 20 from Cagayan de Oro who are in Narita and Tokyo, Japan, for training was harmed. NJHREAI secretary general Jose Ma. Zayco said the areas where the Negros trainees under the NJHREAI program are located were not hit by tsunami, although there were reports of fires in some areas in Narita. But he said it was difficult to contact them in Japan because phone lines appeared to be clogged. — LBG, GMA News