WASHINGTON - AMERICANS celebrating the beauty of Washington's landmark pink cherry blossoms this spring have at heart the tragedies jolting Japan, which gave the trees to the United States.
'I'm here to show support. I have a lot of friends, students affected by this earthquake,' Chris Hudler, a 31-year-old soccer coach, said under some of the 3,000 trees donated by Japan, the first of which were presented to Washington as a gesture of friendship exactly 99 years ago on Sunday.
Mr Hudler was an English teacher from 2007 to 2009 in Natori, one of several Japanese cities hit hard by the earthquake and tsunami.
Yayoi Nagayama, who hails from Fukushima and arrived on a US vacation just days before the March 11 disaster that crippled the nuclear reactor some 29km from her home, was clearly distraught under the blossoms.
She struggled with her English as she tried to speak of Japan, and the worst crisis to hit her homeland since World War II. To 'think nothing is better than thinking' about the tragedy now, said Ms Nagayama, 25, as she took part in a ceremony to show support to victims of the disaster.
More than 27,000 people are dead or missing, and two weeks after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami crippled the aging nuclear plant in north-eastern Japan, rescue work is still under way to avoid a major nuclear disaster. -- AFP
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