For several hours, Ashley Russell thought his daughter was dead. A missing persons Web site set up to track Japan’s tsunami said so.
The Australian father eventually discovered that the post was a hoax and his daughter, Alice Byron, is safe.
Sydney-based Russell told of his distress on Tuesday after finding a message on the Google site on Saturday afternoon saying the 21-year-old woman had been confirmed dead at a hospital in the devastated coastal town of Ofunato, Japan, where she had been teaching English for nine months.
It cited the name and telephone number of a real hospital, but gave a fake doctor’s name. Her father said frantic friends in Japan were able to telephone the hospital and confirm the deception.
“There are some evil people out there,” said Russell, a 48-year-old publisher. “Her employer told me other people had suffered the same hoax as well.”
With thousands still missing from the devastating tsunami that followed Japan’s worst-ever earthquake on Friday, the potential for such hoaxes is great.
“These people are looking for a reaction,” said Byron, who was tracked down by reporters at Ofunato City Hall in stricken northeast Iwate Prefecture on Tuesday. “There are people on the Internet who want to make light of a bad situation and make edgy jokes ... It doesn’t take long for the Internet hate machine to roll into action.”
She said she was at her Ofunato home when the quake hit. She climbed the hill behind her apartment and watched the unstoppable water carry cars and massive amounts of debris inland.
“One of the hardest things to deal with psychologically was not contacting my family to tell them I was safe,” she said.
She was eventually able to send a brief e-mail saying “safe. evacuated to town hall center. love you,” using a satellite phone.
But she added: “People have lost far more than I have, and I think the fact that a person had a hoax played on them, in the scheme of this disaster, is one of the most minor, insignificant things imaginable, even if it did cause my parents great hurt.”
“The hurt that other people are feeling in this city is larger by an unimaginable degree,” she said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese