RI mariners confirmed dead after tsunami

Four Indonesian fishermen were confirmed dead and four other workers were still missing after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Jumhur Hidayat, the Chief of the Indonesian Labor Placement and Protection Agency (BNP2TKI), said the four crew members of fishing vessel Kunimari Dai III were Arifin Siregar, 29, from Losari, Central Java, Tommy Setiawan, 30, from Brebes, Central Java, Rudi Hartono, 30, from Pati, Central Java and Sunardi, 27, from Praya, Central Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.

The agency confirmed the report after receiving the official account from a shipmate who survived.

“According to the survivor, now in his hometown in Brebes, the four were aboard the fishing vessel anchored in a small harbor when the 8.9 magnitude quake and the tsunami swept through Japan’s northern region,” Jumhur said in a Commission IX hearing on health and labor affairs at the House of Representatives on Monday.

The BNP2TKI, cooperating with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, has already delivered the news of the four dead fishermen to their families, he added.

Jumhur said two of the four missing workers were Alfian Hidayah, 19, and Abdul Ghofar, 21, both from the Mlongo subdistrict in Japara, Central Java, while the two others, employed at the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima, have not been identified.

“Before the tsunami, Alfian and Abdul were ordered to work in another fishing vessel, and so far nobody knows their whereabouts,” he said.

A 8.9 earthquake rattled Japan on March 11, causing a tsunami that have claimed over 8,000 lives while over 12,000 persons are still missing.

The country is still struggling with a crisis in the Fukushima nuclear plant complex that has started to release radiation due to the non-functioning cooling systems.

Indonesia sent a relief team to help victims at the tsunami-hit areas last week and also handed over blankets.

More than 11,800 were employed in the industrial and maritime sectors, and around 680 were employed as nurses and caretakers in hospitals.

According Foreign Ministry data, 31,517 Indonesians were employed in Japan during the back-to-back natural disasters and most were placed in the prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate, Tokyo and Osaka.

Jumhur said Indonesia was still waiting for Japan’s labor market conditions to improve following the disasters.

“The training program for Indonesian job-seekers headed to Japan will continue despite the disasters. Their deployment will likely be suspended for a short time as the condition in Japan gradually recovers,” he said.

He said Indonesia has sent 686 health workers to Japan in the past three years but only two have passed Japan’s national exams to get their registered nurse certificates.

Just like South Korea, Japan hires industrial and health workers from Indonesia.

The Indonesian Red Cross reported its Restoring Family Links (RFL) team sent to Japan last week has started to look for information on 50 Indonesians based on the requests from their families in Indonesia.

“We have confirmed that 34 of them are safe and some have returned to Indonesia. We still keep contacting the rest,” said PMI communication officer Aulia Arriani.

She said those who had yet to be confirmed their where abouts cannot be contacted through telephones while the adresses given to the team were also incomplete.