HTH -- Haiti Earthquake

March 17, 2011. U.S. offers to evacuate nationals from Japan; plumes of radioactive material travels over Pacific Ocean

SOURCE: Altegrity Risk International

The United States chartered aircraft to help U.S. nationals leave Japan and authorized relatives of diplomatic staff to leave the country, reports said on March 17th. U.S. nationals who appeared in Tokyo's Narita and Haneda airports would be flown to unspecified "safe havens" from which they would then have to arrange their travel onwards. The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, meanwhile, said on March 16th that U.S. nationals should evacuate a radius of 80km (50 miles) from the Fukushima nuclear plant, a more serious warning than that of the Japanese government itself, which evacuated only a 20km (12 miles) zone.

Additionally, the United Kingdom chartered planes to fly from Tokyo to Hong Kong to help British nationals attempting to leave Japan. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said no charges would be leveled on Britons "directly affected" by the tsunami, all others would be charged 600 U.K. pounds (US$964). The FCO advises against all non-essential travel to Tokyo and northeastern Japan and called on Britons in Tokyo to consider leaving.

U.S. and Swedish officials, meanwhile, said that plumes of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant had stretched across much of the Pacific but had dissipated before they reached the West Coast of North America. These low concentrations of radioactive particles reportedly posed no threat to humans. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations based in Vienna, has monitored the movement of radioactive plumes from eastern Japan and developed models to determine how winds may distribute the radioactive particles.