Singer awaits news on friends

A WOMAN who has forged strong cultural links between Ireland and Japan was waiting anxiously for news last night about friends caught up in the Pacific earthquake and tsunami.

Cork-based musicologist and opera singer, Sonya Keogh, phoned friends in the EU Japan Festival office in Toyko yesterday as soon as she heard about the earthquake.

But as they were speaking, a large aftershock struck the city and the phone went dead.