No. of foreign residents drops 10% in disaster-hit prefectures+

TOKYO, July 29 Kyodo -
The number of foreign residents in the three disaster-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima dropped 10.5 percent to 30,092 as of the end of March compared with that at the end of last December, the Ministry of Justice said Friday.
The number of such people dropped 1.9 percent nationwide during the same period, underscoring the decline in number of foreigners in the three prefectures hit hard by the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
''Many foreigners returned to their countries after the disaster and have not come back to Japan as they are concerned about the aftermath of the nuclear crisis'' at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant, said an official in the ministry's Immigration Bureau.
In the three prefectures, the number of foreign residents also dropped 944 as of the end of June compared with that at the end of March.
By status, the number of foreign trainees at companies and other entities at the end of June fell 67.9 percent in Miyagi from the end of December, according to the survey. The figure dropped 18.5 percent in Iwate and 19.2 percent in Fukushima.