More than 600 Taiwanese on 21 tour groups in quake-affected areas around the Noto Peninsula of Japan’s Ishikawa Prefecture on Monday were safe and were scheduled to return to Taiwan or travel to other regions of Japan with assistance from travel agencies, officials said yesterday.
The people were on tours offered by five Taiwanese travel agencies — Cola Tours, Star Travel, Richmond Tours, Lion Travel and SET Tour, the Tourism Administration said.
“We have yet to receive any emergency requests from travel agencies,” it said. “We will continue monitoring updates on the situation in Japan and provide assistance accordingly.”
Photo: AFP
Twenty-one people on self-guided tours were stranded due to the temporary closure of Niigata Airport, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健), said, adding that 11 of them had traveled to other airports by land, five planned to do the same and five planned to fly to Seoul from Niigata Airport, which had resumed operations.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Osaka sent staff to be on standby near Niigata Airport and would go there to help Taiwanese once the roads to the airport open, Liu said.
A Taiwanese woman living in Japan asked for assistance, as her residence was cut off from water and electricity, Liu said, adding that she had since moved to a nearby shelter and the office would maintain contact with her to provide assistance.
The office also confirmed the safety of Taiwanese businesspeople, residents and students it has details about in the region.
Taiwanese in need of assistance can call the office’s emergency line at +81-90-8794-4568 or the office in Tokyo at +81-80-1009-7179, it said.
Meanwhile, the National Fire Agency following instructions from Minister of the Interior Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) on Monday notified its special search-and-rescue teams on shift — those in Pingtung County and Taipei — to prepare for potential missions and checked the resources of other teams.
It has mobilized 160 search-and-rescue personnel — including four physicians, four nurses and one structural technician — four search-and-rescue canine units and 13 tonnes of equipment, the fire agency said, adding that Japan had not requested foreign assistance with search-and-rescue efforts.
The teams would act upon notification from the foreign ministry, it added.
Some Taiwanese tourists yesterday afternoon returned to Taiwan from Komatsu City in Ishikawa.
A married couple said that Monday’s shaking felt stronger than what they experienced in Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999.
“You could hear the earth rumbling before the temblor,” they said of their experience in Japan. “The building that was next to ours felt like it was going to collapse. It was very scary.”
A Taiwanese man living in Niigata Prefecture was quoted by Taiwan’s EBC News as saying he felt a small earthquake before the main shaking began.
“We were just talking about how there had not been earthquakes in Niigata for a while,” he said. “The next thing we knew there was a loud earthquake alert and then the shaking began.”
“It got more violent after a pause of about one to two minutes,” he said. “We saw water in hot springs sloshing back and forth, and overflowing the sides. The children were scared and cried.”
“Rail services within the prefecture have all been suspended,” he added.
Tigerair Taiwan, the nation’s only airline that offers weekly flights to Niigata Prefecture, said its services on Friday would operate as scheduled.
People with tickets who were unable to return to Taiwan on Monday due to the cancelation of its Flight IT229 have been offered flights departing from nearby airports where Tigerair Taiwan services are available, it said.
On Monday, the airline’s Flight IT228 to Niigata Airport was forced to return to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 6:19pm after the Japan Meteorology Agency issued a tsunami alert following the earthquake.
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