“The damage is still unclear,” Hirose said. “Gradually we are finding what happened and how it damaged Japan. … It will take some time (to recover).”

Several days after the earthquake and resulting tsunami hit Japan causing flooding as well as the explosion of a nuclear power plant, MSU students and faculty are beginning to pick up the pieces. Amber Arashiro, an adviser with the OISS as well as the adviser for the MSU Japanese Club, said there is no way of knowing yet if all international students are safe.

Seven MSU students studying abroad with the Japan Center for Michigan Universities in Hikone, Japan — about three hours south of Tokyo — all have been accounted for and are safe, said Stephanie Motschenbacher, the communications director for MSU International Studies and Programs.

Only one student responded to an e-mail MSU sent to the Japanese international students on Friday, although Arashiro herself has been in contact with many of the students by phone or Facebook.

“I just called one student and he sounded so awful,” Arashiro said. “He was like, ‘I can’t function.’”

Arashiro immediately called the student’s friends and neighbors and asked them to help the student. In addition to working with individual students, Arashiro is planning to set up a support group and inform students about services offered by the MSU Counseling Center.

Arashiro said moving ahead in helping students has been difficult because of spring break and because OISS Director Peter Briggs has been out of the country for the past two weeks.

“I just don’t know what do to,” Arashiro said. “In these kind of emergencies, they would always go to (Briggs).”

Arashiro said she e-mailed Briggs but has yet to hear a response.

Advertising junior Shosuke Nakamura, vice president of the MSU Japanese Club, said watching the earthquake and its effects unfold from across the Pacific is difficult.

“It was still unbelievable,” Nakamura said. “It was so big.”

Hirose said in Japan, schools and workplaces train students and employees how to respond in case of an earthquake, but Friday’s was bigger than most people expected.

To help the victims of the earthquake, Nakamura said MSU Japanese Club plans to collect a monetary donation for those in Japan. The club will meet Wednesday to discuss details of the potential donation.

Nakamura said he feels MSU has done a good job reaching out to students and believes several students will benefit from the counseling services. Nakamura said his friends and relatives are safe, although many are without power or water.

Other students still are waiting to hear from family and friends. Linguistics senior Haruka Kimura has yet to hear from her grandparents, whom she tried calling more than 100 times on Friday.

“I called the nearest middle school from their house where they might have evacuated but somehow they do not answer,” Kimura said in an e-mail. “(They) might still have (an) electric (outage).”