Indonesia Not Yet Planning to Evacuate Its 4,000 Citizens

The Indonesian government is not yet planning to evacuate 4,000 Indonesians living near Fukushima’s nuclear power plant, a minister said.

"There are 4,000 Indonesians living in an area 50-100 kilometers from the power plant. So far they are in good condition and we are not yet planning to return them home to Indonesia," Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa said here on Monday before attending a meeting with members of the House of Representatives here.

The minister said the government had prepared scenarios for those people in case the situation in Fukushima got worse. Earlier, the Japanese newspaper Sankei reported Sunday, citing police data, that the number of people killed in Japan`s devastating earthquake and tsunami has climbed to 10,668.

The total death toll from the disaster could rise much further as the police said 16,574 people are still missing. The twin disaster that rocked Japan on March 11 also triggered a number of explosions at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, spreading fears of massive radioactive contamination.

Radioactive pollution around the plant remains high with radioactive iodine in the water at the plant`s second reactor 10 million times above the normal level. Hundreds of thousands have been evacuated from the disaster zone and given accommodation at temporary refuge centers across the country.

The Japanese government has said the damage from the disaster could reach US$310 billion. As many as 7,740 bodies have been found and identified and most of them has been handed over to relatives.

The quake and the tsunami claimed the biggest number of lives and victims in the Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures northeast of the country. A total of 243,049 people are staying at temporary accommodation centers, the paper said.