121 Indonesians in Sendai safe

The Indonesian embassy in Tokyo has confirmed that 121 Indonesian nationals are safe in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan.

“We have collected their data,” Indonesian ambassador to Japan Muhammad Lutfi said on Sunday, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

The city of Sendai is closest to the epicenter of the 8.9 magnitude quake that hit Japan on Friday.

The Indonesian embassy on Saturday sent an evacuation team to Sendai comprising of five staffers, two translators and two technical officers. Lutfi said the team’s task is to collect the data of Indonesian citizens in Sendai and evacuate them.

He also said that the embassy was trying to evacuate all Indonesians in Sendai using a bus. He acknowledged that the means of transportation used was not comparable to the number of people who were to be evacuated. He added that he had ordered the evacuation team to work indefinitely.

Lutfi also said that the embassy had located 19 of 82 Indonesian nationals reportedly living near a nuclear reactor experiencing post-shock troubles in Fukushima.

“Nineteen are safe; six of them have been brought outside the 20-kilometer radius [of the nuclear plant],” he added.