No Vietnamese confirmed dead in Japan quake

The magnitude 9 earth quake hits Japan on March 11

The Tokyo-based Vietnam News Agency correspondent reported that no name of Vietnamese nationals was included in the list of 564 deaths and over 1,000 missing announced by the Japanese Police Agency on March 12. Until now, no Vietnamese in Japan was reported dead in the most devastating disaster.

The President of the Vietnamese Youth and Students’ Association (VYSA) in Japan , Nguyễn Ngọc Tú, told VNA that he had reached Hải Dương-born Đồng Quang Điệp, a student at the Tohoku University in Sendai city by paging on March 12. Sendal is capital of Miyagi refecture, the hardest hit by the recent earthquake and tsunami.

He quoted Điệp as saying that his Vietnamese fellows, estimated at between 30 and 40, were evacuated to shelters erected by the Sendai administration.

“It is lucky that the university is located in a high place so all the students are safe and no one was reported injury,” Điệp was quoted as saying.

However, the power, water supply and gas systems in the region have not resumed operation.

The VYSA leader however expressed concerns over the fate of other students following education in provinces adjacent to Miyagi such as Aomori, Akita, Iwate and Fukushima, though in small numbers.

Four Vietnamese engineering interns working in a site about 30 minutes by tram to Sendai were reported safe in shelters. At the point the deadly quake occurred on March 11, these people were still at the workplace. They were immediately evacuated to the existing safe shelters, avoiding the workplace destruction by the disaster.

Relevant Vietnamese agencies are working hard to contact these workers to determine the number of Vietnamese workers evacuated to these shelters and the fate of others.

Statistics released by the Vietnamese embassy in Japan showed that some 31,000 Vietnamese nationals are living in Japan, including permanent residents. Of them, some 3,700 are students and almost 17,000 interns or apprentices./.