Tsunami Survivor Shares Message About the Preciousness of Human Life

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Contact: Terry Goodrich, (254) 710-3321
WACO, Texas (April 13, 2016) – It's been more than five years since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, but the country and its families are still feeling the effects of the disaster.
A guest speaker from Japan, Seietsu Sato, a survivor of the tragedy, will present a colloquial "Saving Lives" about the disaster, recovery and the reconstruction effort. He will speak at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 14, in Draper 147, sharing his story and a message about the value of human life.
Sato, who lost his wife in the tragedy, is a retired assistant fire chief from the region of Japan most devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. He directed a team of firefighters who put out the fires that engulfed Kesennuma City after the twin disasters struck.
The tsunami claimed nearly 20,000 lives, destroyed 200,000 houses and forced the evacuation of 400,000 people. Today, more than 180,000 people are still displaced from their homes or living in temporary housing.
Even though he is retired, Sato continues to devote himself to serving others through the reconstruction effort.
In 2012, after the disaster struck, a group of Baylor students led by Yuko Prefume, Ed.D., senior lecturer in Japanese at Baylor, visited Japan and helped with recovery efforts. In the summer of 2013, she and another group of students visited the district of Motoyoshi, one of the hardest-hit regions in the country.
While there, they met with Sato, the local fire chief at the time. With Sato, the students helped clean up the beaches and visited a local elementary school, where they donated and read English books with the children and played volleyball with them.
The lecture is free and open to the public. Draper is located at 1420 S. Seventh St.
by Jenna Press, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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