Five hundred Colombians resident in Japan will be evacuated by military plane in the face of the nuclear threat, according to diplomatic sources, reported EFE Friday.
The first passengers will be brought back on Monday March 21 on a Colombian Armed Forces airplane that will depart Bogota Saturday 19.
The Colombian Ambassador to Japan, Patricia Cardenas, and the Commander of the Colombian Air Force, General Julio Alberto Gonzalez, told local media that some 500 of the 1,820 Colombians registered with the consulate in Tokyo wish to leave the country. This figure is higher than the 300 previously stated.
Gonzalez said that an airplane will depart for Tokyo to evacuate the Colombians. The plane will have 17 crew, medics and nurses on board to offer humanitarian assistance to those affected by the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeast Japan a week ago.
Two hundred people will travel on the first flight which is due to arrive in Colombia on Monday with the highest priority given to children, the elderly and pregnant women Ambassador Cardenas told RCN Radio.
General Gonzalez said that thanks to the “chain of assistance” formed with other South American countries the Venezuela government is going to “take 50 Colombians and leave them in Caracas” and in other airplane, Chile will transport those who are currently in Korea. In our planes, we are also going to take Venezuelans and Chileans”.
Yesterday President Juan Carlos Santos and Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin visited the Japanese Ambassador in Bogota, Kazumi Suzuki, to express their condolences regarding the national disasters that have afflicted the Asian country.
The death toll of the tremors and tidal wave is now over 6,900 and more than 10,300 are missing.