Huddersfield’s Japanese students collect cash for people back in quake-stricken Japan

WORRIED Japanese students are collecting money to help people in their quake-stricken country.

A group of four from Huddersfield University collected cash from commuters at Huddersfield railway station yesterday which they will pass on to the Red Cross.

Yudai Sakurai told the Examiner he had tried to send packages of batteries and torches back to his home city of Yamagata but all delivery systems and transport systems are at a stand-still.

The 28-year-old said collecting money through a charity was the only way he and the others could do their bit to help family and friends back in Japan.

“I knew I had to do something to help,’’ he said.

“That’s why it’s important we raise money through the charity because it’s the only way we can help.”

Yudai said the tsunami hit the northern city where he lives and he hasn’t been able to get in touch with some of his friends.

“I’m really worried,’’ he said. “I cannot contact them so I don’t know what’s happened to them.”

Experts yesterday moved to allay fears of a Chernobyl-style disaster after Japan ordered 140,000 people to stay indoors because of leaking radiation from a nuclear power station.

A third explosion and a fire at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant saw radiation spread along Japan’s north-eastern coast worsening the crisis caused by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami which followed.

The disaster has so far killed 3,300 people, although the death toll is expected to top 10,000 and has badly hit the world’s third-largest economy.

Tens of thousands are still missing and there are fears some Britons may be among the dead.

The nuclear accident in Japan is the world’s most serious since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.

Nana Takeda, 20, from Shizuoka said her family were safe but some of her friends had lost relatives in the disaster.

She said: “It is so serious – so many people have been affected by it. I wish that many people in Huddersfield could contribute to our collection so we can help them.”

The students – led by Yuki Kondo – will also be collecting donations from outside Huddersfield University students union today.

Sayoko Hayashi, a Tokyo woman now living in Edgerton, said: “We would like Huddersfield Examiner readers to donate their money to the British Red Cross to go to Japanese casualties.”