Finally, some good news out of Japan! Imagine being a Japanese foreign student in America, having no way of knowing if your family on the other side of the world survived the tsunami that rocked the region last week.

Akiko Kosaka, a student from Japan attending the University of California, had lost all hope for her family in Minami Sanriku, a fishing village where more than half of the 17 000 residents are missing and feared dead in the aftermath of last week’s tsunami. “I didn’t think they survived,” Kosaka told CNN. “I cried for three days — Friday, Saturday, Sunday.”

Then on Sunday night, she received word from a friend in Japan of the existence of a 45 second YouTube video showing her family home as the only one standing amid the rubble. The video highlighted her older sister holding a sign to a TV news crew saying in Japanese “we are all safe.”

Embedding of the video has been disabled, but you can watch it HERE.

It’s okay, I also had to wipe my tears after watching.

[Source: CNN]