ALL MALAYSIANS IN FUKUSHIMA SAFE

KUALA LUMPUR, March 15 (Bernama) -- All Malaysians residing in the
Fukushima area in Japan are safe as they are staying outside of 50km radius from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant which exploded on Saturday, a day after the country was hit by a 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami.
The Foreign Ministry in a statement Monday night said people living within the 20km radius from the nuclear plant had been ordered to evacuate to designated safe areas by the Japanese authorities.
The first explosion at the plant occurred at 2.30pm (Malaysian time) on Saturday followed by the second explosion in the Unit 3 reactor at 10.01am (Malaysian time) Monday.
"The Japanese authorities have reported that the condition of the
containment vessel remains sound and the risk of large amounts of radioactive materials being dispersed is very low," it said.
The statement also said that as at 3pm (4pm Japan time) today, the Malaysian embassy in Tokyo had been able to contact 858 Malaysian citizens including students in the worst-hit areas, namely Miyagi, Fukushima, Iwate, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Chiba and Saitama.
"The embassy is also in contact with other Malaysians in other parts of Japan which are less affected by the earthquake. All of them are safe and there are no reports of any Malaysian casualty," it said.
The statement said officials from the embassy had also met with most of the Malaysians at the evacuation centres to offer any assistance needed.
According to the officials, most of the Malaysians did not wish to be relocated to Tokyo.
"Only about six Malaysians (four students and two other Malaysians) chose to come back with the recce team to Tokyo," it said.
The embassy will continue to monitor the well-being and offer assistance to all the affected Malaysians.
The Operations Room in Wisma Putra and the Malaysian embassy in Tokyo are in operation 24 hours.