NANAO, Ishikawa Prefecture—A woman from Vietnam became perhaps the most important employee of Sugiyo Co. by serving as a life-saver, counsellor and even a labor negotiator following the Noto Peninsula earthquake.

The company, a marine product processor known for imitation crab products called “surimi,” had nearly 100 foreign technical intern trainees working at its plants here on the peninsula.

For many of them, the New Year’s Day quake was the first one they had experienced. The resulting damage forced them to live in evacuation, confused over the language barrier and Japanese customs, and uncertain about their futures.

But very few of them have left the company. And Lien Kaji, a Sugiyo employee in the administrative department, played a huge role in keeping them here.

Nguyen Thi Thuy, one of Sugiyo’s technical interns, explained how Kaji helped in the early stages of the disaster.

Thuy, 23, was in a company dormitory when the violent shaking started. She had come to Japan only three months earlier.

Rice bowls and other tableware fell from a cupboard. A cabinet was toppled.

“I had never experienced an earthquake like that when I was in Vietnam,” Thuy said. “I was really frightened.”

Thuy fled to the parking lot of a nearby convenience store. Her phone rang as she was starting to move to a community center along with a Japanese neighbor.

“It’s not good for you to split up,” Kaji, 44, said on the other side of the line. “You should return to the convenience store.”

A native of Ho Chi Minh City, Kaji was one of the first batch of technical intern trainees employed by Sugiyo.

She married a Sugiyo employee and joined the company on a full-time basis in 2007.

Kaji initially served as an interpreter on the sidelines of her work at a plant. As the trainees grew in number, she was appointed exclusive caretaker of Sugiyo’s technical interns in 2017.

A total of 98 Vietnamese and Cambodian technical intern trainees were employed at Sugiyo’s sites on the Noto Peninsula when the quake struck.

About 30 individuals, including technical interns from nearby areas who had received Kaji’s instructions to evacuate in groups, gathered at the convenience store parking lot.

Soon, a Sugiyo employee arrived at the site through Kaji’s coordination. The employee led the entire party to Nanao Shinonome High School, the designated evacuation center for the area.

The trainees entered a classroom on the second floor of a school building, where they spread out futon and finally got some sleep.

All the other evacuees were Japanese.

The Vietnamese couldn’t make out how they were supposed to handle their daily relief supplies or how they were supposed to eat meals.

Kaji gave detailed advice to Thuy and her disoriented compatriots.

Around the same time, Nguyen Thi Nhi, a Vietnamese who became a technical intern trainee for Sugiyo in late 2022, was at Komaruyama Elementary School, another evacuation center.

Nhi, 20, was on the ground floor of a two-story apartment house that was used as a Sugiyo dormitory when the quake hit.

She had experienced another earthquake in May last year, but it didn’t make a strong impression on her.

The Jan. 1 shaking was far stronger and caused a microwave to drop to the floor.

After running outdoors with seven other residents of the dormitory, Nhi received a phone call from Kaji.

“You should go to Komaruyama Elementary School now,” Kaji told her.

Kaji had asked the landlord of the apartment house about the location of the evacuation center in the area and contacted Nhi and others to give directions.

Even after Nhi returned to the apartment house to clean up, she continued to receive advice from Kaji, including how to properly dispose of broken objects.

Kaji herself was affected by the quake, which struck when she was at her home in the neighboring town of Naka-Noto. She had taken refuge at an evacuation center for a while.

Still, Kaji continued to provide support to the technical interns, both officially and privately.

Once their physical safety was ensured, the technical interns had to deal with another source of anxiety: wages.

Sugiyo’s quake-damaged plants did not appear likely to be reactivated soon.

Nhi said she became worried that she would be left without pay with her workplace offline.

She wanted to quickly return to work to finance her future and to continue sending a fixed monthly amount of money to her family members in Vietnam.

Kaji informed Sugiyo officials about the anxiety of Thuy and other technical intern trainees.

Sugiyo’s wage payments are made early each month and cover work done in the previous month. The wages due to be paid in early January were for earnings in December, so they would be paid in full.

But the pay in early February would compensate January’s work, which could not be done because of the quake damage.

Sugiyo pledged in early January that it would pay corresponding wages in full to employees, part-time workers and technical intern trainees, even if they didn’t come to work.

Kaji promptly conveyed that decision to the Vietnamese technical interns.

Many of the technical interns had returned briefly to Vietnam.

But Thuy, Nhi and others had told Sugiyo officials, after consulting their family members, that they would stay in Japan to work as soon as the company’s plants resumed operations.

The company in early February also decided to pay full wages in early March to staff members even if they could not work.

Sugiyo President Tetsuya Sugino, who is also head of the Nanao Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said he is worried about a quake-triggered population drain from the Noto Peninsula.

“We want it to be known that our company safeguards the livelihoods of its staff even in the event of a disaster,” he said.

Only four of Sugiyo’s 98 technical interns had quit the company as of March 7.

“Lien Kaji’s presence is the primary source of reassurance for our technical intern trainees,” said Yumi Mizukoshi, a Sugiyo employee in the management planning office.

Kaji said that at the time of the quake, many technical interns only knew the locations of supermarkets and the houses of their friends.

“They were lucky this time around because they had access to the internet, but the access could have been lost,” she said.

She continued: “Prior knowledge of evacuation centers would allow them to live with a sense of assurance. I will draw on that lesson to continue providing support to them.”