North Central College student survives quake

March 15, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- ABC7 spoke with a junior from North Central College in Naperville who is spending a year studying at Iwate University, which is about an hour from the earthquake's epicenter.

Erica Funkhouser is majoring in Japanese and Classical Civilizations.

"On Friday, when all the earthquakes started, I mean, it shook for three hours straight in the afternoon, and my dorm is very old, so we were worried about that. But, we were evacuated to a safer place on campus that night. But in the morning, it was past the 9.0 that hit. The building was fine. I mean, for foreigners, you do feel excluded from normal society, but walking down the street recently, so many people just stopped me, Japanese people, strangers stopped me and asked to make sure I'm OK," Funkhouser told ABC7 over the phone.

Funkhouser lives among a large group of international students. She is supposed to be in Japan until August. She says she is trying to tough it out because she doesn't want to leave until her studies are finished.

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