Missouri schools are checking on their students in Japan amid the aftermath of a massive earthquake and tsunami. Washington University and Webster University are reporting that their foreign studies students, in mid-central Japan, are all accounted for and safe.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a University of Missouri journalism graduate working in Tokyo says it was almost like a thrill ride at an amusement park. He says the newspaper where he works has a seismic isolation system.
St. Louis based Monsanto Corporation says its 20 employees in Japan are not in danger. Monstanto and other St. Louis area corporations are accounting for their employees after the quake.
St. Louis-based Emerson says its working with Japanese officials to account for some 800 workers at 20 facilities throughout Japan. A spokesman says so far, all are well, though efforts to contact some of them continue.
Energizer Holdings, headquartered in Town & Country, has employees on assignment there who are also OK.
The Japan America Society of St. Louis says its members have been in touch with relatives and friends outside the earthquake zone in Japan, but communication with residents living near the quake’s center in Sendai remains impossible.
The society is urging Missourians to avoid taxing an already overloaded telephone and cellular system in Japan, and recommends using e-mail to contact friends and family there.
