Kazakh citizens evacuated from Japan arrive to Almaty

On March 15 at 8:20 a.m. the Emergency Ministry’s airplane carrying Kazakh citizens evacuated from Japan landed in Almaty, Deputy Head of Emergency Ministry’s Department in Almaty Yuriy Ilyin told Tengrinews.kz. He said that 85 people were onboard the charter flight, 18 of them are children. Besides citizens of Kazakhstan the flight also brought 16 citizens of Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan had asked Kazakhstan to aid it in evacuation of its citizens from Japan, citing the lack of own funds to arrange a charter flight. The TU-154 airplane of the Emergency Ministry of Kazakhstan left for Japan with 2 disaster medics onboard on March 14. Japan was hit by its worst 8.9-magnitude earthquake followed by 10-meter high tsunami wave on March 11. The disaster was shortly following by a series of aftershock quakes some of which exceeded 6 in magnitude. The number of victims has already exceeded 5000 people, but many as still unaccounted for. The natural disaster caused a series of emergencies at Japanese nuclear power plants. One of the plants started leaking radiation.