Mum's relief as missing son found

Lost and found: Melbourne man Jason Briffa is helping out in the village where he sought refuge from the earthquake and tsunami. Source: Supplied

Jason Briffa finally got a message to his family last night, saying he was safe following Friday's earthquake and had sought shelter in a small village in Sendai.

Mary Briffa said she was upset at the lack of communication in finding the 25-year-old teacher.

"Obviously, I'm happy, but I would still like to talk with him and find out how he is," she told the Herald Sun .

"He is still in a place where there is no food or electricity. I've been waiting to hear some good news, and it took his employer to ring me and tell me he was OK.

"DFAT still don't know what is going on."

Mrs Briffa said she had emailed her son's employer, Denis Cusack, in desperation.

He had then called to tell her Jason was helping locals in the village where he had found shelter.

"That's how I found out -- he rang. I was taken by surprise and all I heard was Jason is OK, he's fine.

"I blocked out everything else. I just heard the important thing."

Mr Cusack said problems with phone lines had prevented Jason from contacting his family.

"Obviously, the phone lines have been down most of the time since Friday and he (Mr Cusack) was able to get a signal and he called us," Mrs Briffa told the ABC.

"His telephone was running low on battery but he said Jason was at the Murata high school and he's been helping locals with the clean-up for the past two days."

The Point Cook English teacher had been in Sendai when the tsunami took everything in its path.

His mother never gave up hope he was alive.

"I thought either he lost his phone or it was completely dead, and he's probably out helping other people, because that's the sort of person he is," she said.

"He's a very helpful person. He's very soft-hearted. He tries to help everybody so he might be out helping others and that's why he might not be able to get in contact with me, because the area he's in, he probably doesn't have anything going at the moment."

Prior to Mr Cusack's call, Mrs Briffa had become increasingly frustrated after hearing nothing from the Department of Foreign Affairs about Jason.

Mrs Briffa said she and her sister had rung DFAT after the tsunami, but government officials called back only after reading about her son in the paper.

A Sydney woman, who also read about Mr Briffa, told Mrs Briffa her sister in Sendai would search for him in the disaster zone herself.

"She said she would physically go out and have a look for him today and get back to me," Mrs Briffa said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd said his department was working with Japanese authorities to find all missing Australians.

"We will not spare any effort in tracking down the whereabouts of each and every Australian," Mr Rudd said.