``My Son, You Are Alive… Thank You``

It was confirmed that many Korean residents in the U.S., who were reported to have been missing to the Korean Consul in New York after the terrorist attacks in the U.S., are alive.

Lee Tae-Young (41. Yeonjae-ku, Busan), who lost contact with her sister Lee Jeong-Min (25) who works at a financial company in the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York, was relieved as he heard from his aunt living in New York that her sister could escape from the disaster because she went to New Jersey to receive a company training.

Mr. Lee said that ``I made hundreds of phone calls to find out whether she was okay, but I could not contact her. Thinking that my sister died of this disaster, I felt as if my heart would break.``

Kang Jeong-Jin (64. Yeongjae-ku, Busan) shed tears of relief as he heard from his only son Kang Il (29), who works at a British financial company in a building adjacent to the WTC, that he was okay. It was around 11:30 am Wednesday, 38 hours after the terrorist attacks.

Mr. Kang said that only word he could say to his son was `thank you` hearing that his son could not make a phone call because he was rescued and moved to a shelter after having been locked in a building for 4 hours due to the restriction of entry and exit.

Many out of 37 missing Korean people were confirmed to have survived. Some of them include David Lee (43. Lee Hee-Don), who works as the vice-president of the WTC, Park Chan-Young (25, student), Kim Tae-Hyun (50, businessman), and Yim Han-Na (23, language student).

Choi Ho-Won bestiger@donga.com