On LI, agony over family in Japan

A day of high anxiety as they watched devastation unfold on the other side of the world left Long Islanders with family in Japan emotionally drained.

For those unable to get through to loved ones, the agony of not knowing was difficult to bear.

Shingo Matsumuri's day started with televised images of Japanese boats being tossed around like driftwood by towering waves. Matsumuri, whose family runs Koiso, a Japanese restaurant in Carle Place, has an aunt and cousins in Sendai, the city closest to the epicenter of the earthquake.

Although he was unable to get through by phone, Matsumuri, 28, took solace in the fact that his family lives in the hills overlooking the sea, affording them some protection. Still, he longed to hear their voices.

"There's nothing much we can do," Matsumuri said as he helped his mother and father prepare for the restaurant's dinner rush. "It's surreal," he said. "It's like watching a movie."

By late afternoon, Mitsuyo Shoji, 63, owner of the Shin Nippon-Do grocery in Roslyn Heights, hadn't been able to reach her elderly parents and sister in Sendai.

"We worry, and we look on the Internet," she said. "Everybody is trying to reach their relatives, and no one has been able to speak to anyone. It's a very bad situation."

She kept telling herself that her parents and sister may be safer than many: They live in a modern apartment building in the middle of the city.

Several local universities with student exchanges and study-abroad program ties with Japan contacted their Japanese students to offer counseling or other assistance.

Officials at Stony Brook University said two students from New York City and three students from Long Island are studying in Japan. All were reached Friday and found to be safe and outside the most ravaged areas.

For Maggie Yamamoto, a 60- year-old Roslyn resident, word came quickly that her parents, five siblings and their 10 children in Osaka, far from the epicenter, were all safe. But the stark images from Japan had her reeling. "I'm very affected," she said. "It's going to take a long time to rebuild."

Chiba Yoichi, a Japanese exchange student at Old Westbury's New York Institute of Technology, said he spent the day worried sick about his family in Fukushima -- and was finally able to connect through Skype.

The 25-year-old was relieved to learn that his mother, father and younger sister managed to get out of their two-story house before it collapsed.

But it was the story his mother told him about his dog Taro, a husky, that made him feel particularly hopeful. The dog, he was told, calmly ate his lunch as the house fell apart around him. He emerged from the ruins without a scratch.

"They say before the earthquake the dog should know and look for safety," he said. "Not my dog."

With Anthony M. DeStefano

and Ronald Mitchell