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Earthquakes, tremors | March 17, 2011 [ 9:05 ]

Peru's citizens in Japan feel unprotected and uninformed

By Jorge Riveros-Cayo
LivinginPeru.com

Peruvian citizens living in Japan complained about Peru's embassy lack of coordination and response to find and relocate citizens affected by the earthquake and tsunami that struck the country last Friday.

A group of Peruvians that were contacted via Skype expressed their concern for the lack of communication with their consulates located in the biggest cities of the country.

Nationals said the consulates are "unable to say if there is a contingency plan" to find, relocate or repatriate Peruvian citizens.

José Castelo said, "This is not funny. We feel totally uninformed. The Peruvian consulate doesn't have the slightest idea of what to do. According to them, they depend from the Peruvian embassy [in Tokyo] and can't decide for themselves."

Rocío Reynoso, another Peruvian citizen, said, "I want to go back to Peru, because this [the nuclear plant explosion] doesn't have a solution. I am scared because I have two girls, five and four years old. Brazil and Colombia are sending planes to repatriate their nationals. When I called the Peruvian consulate, they said to me that where have I heard that; there was nothing official about it."

Peru's ambassador to Japan, Juan Carlos Capuñay, responded that the consulate's priority is to establish contact with the 70 Peruvian citizens that lived in the area affected by the quake and tsunami.

"So far we have located and contacted 36 nationals and we also know that 11 are out of the disaster area," said Capuñay during an interview with Frecuencia Latina-Channel 2.

The diplomat said that the remaining 23 have not been contacted but have neither been reported as casualties.

Voting on April 10

Capuñay also informed that Peruvian citizens will be able to vote in the upcoming presidential and cogressional elections, on April 10, without any problems.

Despite the severe situation that reigns in Japan, the ambassador said that voting tables installed in the southern cities of Japan will function normally.

The embassy did not plan to install voting centers in the area struck by the quake and tsunami, since 95 percent of Peruvians living and working in Japan live in cities located in the southern area of the country.

"All voting tables are located south, where the Peruvian community mostly lives. There are no risks for the election day, everything will work out normally," said Capuñay to RPP radio station.

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3 Comments

# g says :
March 18, 2011 [ 14:09 ]

It's time to help if we could. The Peruvian or International Red Cross could be a good way. But mostly pray for the ones affected.

# Herve says :
March 20, 2011 [ 12:34 ]

The "funny" things is that I heard A. Garcia proposing help to Japanese Government, while Peru can't even help their own citizens in Japan.

# Michael says :
May 5, 2011 [ 9:50 ]

This is just more evidence on top of mountains of evidence proving that you cannot and should not rely on governments to protect you, to coddle you, or to take care of you. We are not children we are adults, and the government works for us, it is not our mummy, our nanny, our big brother, it is other people like us who we pay to administer certain things. That's IT. They don't make the sun shine, they don't make the grass grow, or the rain fall. Time to start being self reliant and self sufficient and to work to reduce the size of government, reduce it's costs and reduce social engineering. If people informed themselves they would know to get out of Japan. Better yet, they would know that the nuclear reactors built by General Electric of America were a flawed and stupid design, so stupid it's amazing they got built, but there you go - and they would have not been built on a fault line by the ocean - and they would not have used Cesium as a fuel, millions of times more toxic than enriched uranium. Not smart. That's what happens when the people of a country hand their power over to bureaucrats and "officials" - bad things happen. And the Japanese people are the same as everyone else around the world, we are all the same. Time to wake up, grow up.

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