VietNamNet Bridge – Overseas Vietnamese have been trying to contact their families in Vietnam, either through Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, since they cannot connect via mobile phones.

VnMedia has received a lot of emails from overseas Vietnamese in Japan, talking about the their experience of destruction caused by the earthquake.

“At first there were just slight collusions. After that we fell the ground shaking. All of us tried to get under the table. Everyone panicked. The alarm bell rang continuously. Some people even fell unconscious,” Tran Thi Thuy Huong, 21, a student of An Language School in Tokyo in Japan wrote on March 11 about what happened.

“Prior to that, I heard a prediction on TV about the earthquake today and I advised people not to go out too far. I had never experienced an earthquake in Japan and was curious and anxious,” she wrote. “In the morning, there were some small earthquakes. If someone stayed in a room, they would not have felt the ground shake. However, the earthquakes became stronger. At 3 pm, I saw the pan on the kitchen swinging. After that, everything, from cosmetics, textbooks and furnishings fell to the floor”.

“There were four people in my room. All of them screamed because they were really afraid. I closed my eyes. My head was empty. My friends were so frightened that they fell unconscious. I could not go to school this afternoon. Especially, supermarkets and subways shut down. There is no phone signal”.

“A lot of high rise buildings and factories were on fire. My mother cried herself to sleep when she was able to successfully contact me. I feel homesick and I wish I could return home now”.

“I think I still cannot go to school tomorrow, because everything is still chaotic in Japan. We are afraid that prices of goods will be very expensive”.

Meanwhile, Dang Khoa, a student of Tokyo Foreign Language School, said that he was just getting out of a subway car to change into another route at Sankakuji station in Tokyo, when the ground shook violently. I saw the subway car, from which I had just exited, rocking like it was riding on a strong wave. Everyone wasfrightened. The platform shook violently for the second time and people were asked to get up to the ground level and gather in a safe area”.

“The traffic was at a standstill. It was very diffcicult to take a taxi home. I only returned home late at night. I hope everything will get better tomorrow”.

Meanwhile, Thu Hang wrote on Facebook on March 12: “All the six mobile networks have been inoperable. I could not contact Hai, Hang’s husband, until 11 pm last night. Fortunately, Hai was able to walk home”.

Hang also informed that all tickets for flights to Vietnam are sold out.

To Chinh, a Vietnamese citizen in Japan,  sent VietNamNet updated information about Vietnamese students in Sendai, the epicenter of the eathquake.

Through the YM sendai113 which was set up in order to connect Vietnamese students in Japan, we have realized that there still has been no information about Vietnamese people, even though Sendai now has electricity and Internet already.

By the afternoon of March 13, 2011, sendai113 got replies from 2/3 of readers that they have successfully contacted relatives in Japan. Internet remains the main method of communication.

According to the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan, there are about 30,000 Vietnamese people living in Japan, including 17,000 students and interns.

Meanwhile, a Vietnamese student wrote that radioactive waves may spread out to Sendai which will infect Vietnamese students, a dangerous predicament which is likely to worsen with rain tomorrow and snow on March 16.

Tu Uyen