KOTA KINABALU: All 5,009 Malaysians that were in the affected areas of the earthquake and tsunami on the east coast of Honshu, Japan have been listed as safe, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Malaysian Embassy in Japan said today.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Anifah Aman said that, at the moment, the Malaysian embassy in Tokyo has managed to contact 544 of them, including 298 students, in the affected prefectures of Miyagi, Fukushima, Iwate, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Chiba and Saitama and would continue to establish contact with the remaining Malaysians.
“We have identified all the Malaysians that were affected to be safe and we are still trying to contact all of them,” he told reporters during a press conference here today.
He also said that none of the Malaysians were reported hurt and the students are placed in temporary shelters in the affected areas.
According to figures provided by Anifah, there are 4,186 Malaysian residents and 823 Malaysian students in the affected prefectures of Miyagi (60 citizens, including 49 students), Fukushima (39 citizens, including 15 students), Ibaraki (125 citizens, including 62 students), Tochigi (89 citizens, including 15 students), Iwate (29 citizens, including 21 students), Saitama (346 citizens, including 116 students), Chiba (423 citizens, including 111 students) and Tokyo (1,321 citizens, including 434 students).
Anifah believes that there were also Sabahans among those affected but could not give an actual figure.
He corrected a report by a national newspaper which stated that 2,100 students from Malaysia in Japan could not be reached, according to the Ministry of Education.
He said that those students were not in the affected areas of the country and his ministry has already contacted them as well.
Numbers to contact
As for the explosion at the nuclear reactor in Fukushima, Anifah said that there were no Malaysians living within a 50 kilometre radius of the power plant.
He said several Malaysian citizens and students in Sendai, which was hit by the tsunami, were also reported to be safe and would be transferred to shelters in Tokyo.
“At the moment, the Malaysian government is not suggesting to bring back the Malaysians and the Tokyo authorities will make appropriate preparations for all Malaysian students that are brought in so that their needs are met until normalcy is restored,” he said.
Anifah said that his ministry and the embassy would continue to monitor the situation in Japan and their operation rooms are operating around the clock.
Concerned families who wish to contact the operation rooms, may call the ministry at 03-38874570 or 03-88892746 or the embassy in Japan at +81-334763840, he said.
According to Anifah, the Malaysian SMART team has been ordered to stand down after Japan declined its offer to aid search and rescue efforts, citing reasons that it was not required at the moment.
“However, we are still committed to providing aid and we will send them as soon as possible should there be a request,” he said.
The earthquake that measured 8.9 on the Richter scale struck the east coast of Honshu, Japan at 1.46pm (Malaysian Time) on March 11 and was followed by an 6.6 Richter scale aftershock at Nagano on the southwest of Japan at 2.59pm (Malaysian Time) on March 12 and an explosion at
the Fukushima nuclear reactor at 2.30pm on March 12. - FMT
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