Foreigners flee Tokyo over fears crisis will worsen

Airline tickets were in short supply in Japan on Thursday as more foreign governments advised their citizens to get out of Tokyo in the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit the country.

Reuters

Many companies have hired private jets to move their staff out of Japan, amid fears that the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant, some 250 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, could escalate.

The United States, Australia and several European countries urged their citizens to leave the capital and the northeast part of the country where the quake struck.

The US State Department chartered flights for Americans and authorised its embassy staff and their families to leave the country, after US nuclear regulators questioned safety measures taken in Japan.

China moved thousands of people to Tokyo for evacuation from the country and France is assigning two government planes to pull its people out.

Finnish, Swedish and Danish authorities advised citizens within 80 kilometres of the Fukushima plant to evacuate.

Several large Nordic companies, including IKEA and H&M, offered to help their Japanese employees leave Tokyo or surrounding areas and to relocate further south. Indian IT firms were also helping employees to leave.

Commercial flights were under pressure, with just a handful of seats left on most services from Narita - which serves Tokyo - to Hong Kong, Singapore or Seoul.