Eagles advance in BCHL playoff page 27
Organ donation the breath of life for Delta man page 31
Wednesday March 16, 2011 Serving Surrey and North Delta www.surreyleader.com
Surrey woman’s family facing an
UNCERTAIN FUTURE in JAPAN
Clark hands Falcon finance, HST Surrey MLA Stephanie Cadieux also stays in cabinet by Tom Fletcher PREMIER CHRISTY Clark has
PHOTOS SUBMITTED
Akiko Sugawara’s daughter, Anzu, looks out over her grandparent’s field in Sendai, Japan during a recent trip, fascinated by the high-speed passenger (bullet) train in the distance. Sugawara and her two children (below) visited her hometown earlier this month, returning home to South Surrey just four days before the devastating 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck on March 11. Sugawara’s parents survived the initial tremors and tsunami, but she has been unable to contact them for updates since. Sugawara says the bullet train is no longer functioning. by Hannah Sutherland AS AKIKO SUGAWARA watched video footage of a tsunami sweep through farms, roadways and whole villages in her home country of Japan, she felt heartbreak. She thought of all her friends and family in Sendai, the east coast city closest to the earthquake’s epicentre and where she called home for four years while attending college. She thought of her parents, sister and other relatives in nearby Osaki, where the rice-farming family has lived on the same land for 500 years. And she thought of the aquarium located on Sendai’s coast, where hundreds of bodies have since been found. Sugawara, 32, had taken her
two young children to the exhibit during her most recent return trip home, just days before tragedy struck. She had been visiting family in Japan for three weeks with two-year-old Anzu and four-monthold Heiwa before returning home to South Surrey March 6. Four days later, an 8.9-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck the country’s northeast coast, killing thousands. “The scary thing is she usually goes there for a month, so she would’ve been potentially leaving the day it happened,” husband Daniel Pape said.
named rival Kevin Falcon her finance minister and deputy premier, handing him the delicate task of preparing for a referendum on the Harmonized Sales Tax. Clark unveiled a smaller cabinet at swearing-in ceremonies at Government House Monday afternoon, with new faces and new duties. Falcon said he accepted his new roles and was looking forward to a referendum, that could come as early as June, to decide the fate of the HST. Falcon said Monday he will do “an informa- Kevin Falcon tion job,” not a “sales job” in preparing for the vote on the issue that triggered a leadership change. New faces include KamloopsNorth Thompson MLA Terry Lake as environment minister, and Comox Valley MLA Don McRae entering cabinet as agriculture minister.
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