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Report: Residents, Americans flee Tokyo

ATVN's Marie Agnello arrives in Tokyo as the U.S. State Dept. offers citizens a way out of Japan

One week after the 9.0 megaquake off the coast of Japan, the U.S. State Department has opened a flight reservation service for flights from Narita, Japan, to Taipei, Taiwan. Flights began departing from Narita at 12 p.m. local time Friday.

While passengers are required to pay for these flights out of their own pockets, the service to arrange the flights is free.

The U.S. State Department said this better allows people to return to the U.S. form an airport outside of Japan.

The United States Embassy, in addition to the embassies of several other nations such as Canada and Spain, have offered their citizens transportation services in an effort to get them out of the country.

The United States and Canadian embassies have organized buses to transport their citizens from Sendai to Tokyo.

Some Tokyo residents have had to choose the action they feel appropriate after the earthquake and Wednesday’s explosion at the nuclear reactor plant in Fukushima.

Yudai Takemoto, a youth minister at the Tokyo Church of Christ, left Tokyo to go to Sendai and look for missing relatives, according to his coworker. His family lives in Myagi, close to where the tsunami hit. Takemoto has returned to Tokyo and told ATVN his relatives are unharmed, although their houses were destroyed by the tsunami.

One California woman traveled to Tokyo to visit family despite the State Department’s warnings to avoid travel to Japan.

Akiko Igari, a Japanese citizen and USC alumnus who lives in Los Angeles, is staying with her parents in central Tokyo. Igari said she has been in touch with her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, who live in Ibaraki. They are fine, but their home was damaged.

Tokyo is still experiencing blackouts and several Tokyo subway lines remained out of service Friday. The city appears to be otherwise unaffected.

The local news, however, shows continuous reports about tsunami damages and people searching for missing family members. 

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