Damaged houses are seen after an earthquake and tsunami in Sendai, northeastern Japan Saturday.JO YONG-HAK
At least one Canadian has been killed in Japan's earthquake disaster.
There are few details available about the person who died. Foreign Affairs is confirming the death, but wants to respect the family's privacy.
The department says it is offering any assistance it can to Canadians caught up in the disaster.
Foreign Affairs was still trying to account for Canadians living or visiting Japan.
It's estimated there as many as 12-thousand Canadians either living or visiting Japan, but only 1,773 were registered with the Canadian Embassy. Thirteen Canadians were registered as being in the hardest hit area, a Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said.
One of those areas is the city of Sendai, where B.C. resident Brian Jones says his son Jonathan has taught English for the past four years.
On Friday he had not heard from his son since the 8.9 magnitude earthquake shook the country and caused a tsunami that has swallowed parts of the coastline.
"The television media have concentrated on Tokyo, Hawaii, California and everything else," Mr. Jones said. "We need information about Sendai. We are seeing some horrible pictures."
Canadians in Tokyo said Saturday that they were amazed by the calm, controlled and organized way Japanese citizens are dealing with Friday's double disaster.
Youki Harada, 25, has been working at an ad agency in Tokyo for the last four months. When the quake struck she had just returned from lunch on her ninth floor office.
At first no one reacted, she said, because they thought it was just another tremor, but before long the building was swaying and then shaking up and down.
"I just remember being under my desk thinking when is this going to end," she sighed. "All my elementary school earthquake education training just kind of went out the door, it was such a panic attack."
She said her Japanese coworkers were far calmer and they started doing what needed to be done immediately.
"I'm just so shocked how prepared they are for earthquakes. They know their evacuation route, they know where to meet, they know all these technical procedures. Everyone's just helping each other out."
Even on her three-hour walk home Friday night, she said no children were crying, the elderly were being looked after and no one seemed in a panic.
Kristin Kobayashi of Toronto and her father are on vacation in Japan and she was in a Tokyo store when the quake hit. At first she and her father didn't know what was happening.
She says once it was evident it was an earthquake, everyone rushed out into the streets.
"We were more incredulous than scared," Ms. Kobayashi wrote in an email to The Canadian Press.
Although some people around were crying, there was no screaming or mass hysteria, Ms. Kobayashi said.
"Little did we know that was just the Japanese way, they internalize their reactions so as not to make a scene," she said.
"It was relatively tame compared to the reaction of my fellow Torontonians when that earthquake hit the Kingston-area last summer." The June, 2010 earthquake that shook parts of Quebec and Ontario was a magnitude 5.0.
Tokyo sustained little damage compared to the country's shattered northeast where the resulting tsunami has caused extensive destruction, but Ms. Kobayashi says she was up until 4 a.m. local time answering a flood of messages from friends and family who were worried.
"It was overwhelming and touching at the same time," she said.
Both Ms. Harada and Ms. Kobayashi say Tokyo is extremely quiet, and the city is still be rattled by constant aftershocks.
Ms. Harada has had a difficult time sleeping and she's worried about radiation and other chemicals that could poison the atmosphere and she's been given a mask to wear just in case.
"This is a lot of precautionary stuff that they're advising us to do. Not to drink tap water, not to use so much energy right now so that people in Sendai and Miyagi and use our energy."
- With a files from Globe Staff