Russia mulls additional support over Japan quake, vows solidarity
PARIS, March 14 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Japanese counterpart Takeaki Matsumoto in their meeting Monday that Russia is considering additional support to help Japan address rescue operations in the aftermath of a powerful earthquake last week and nuclear plant accidents, a Japanese official said.
In their talks held in Charles de Gaulle Airport in the suburbs of Paris ahead of a two-day meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers, Lavrov also expressed solidarity with the Japanese people to overcome the disaster, the official said.
Matsumoto thanked Lavrov for Russia's assistance, by telling him that Moscow's support will encourage the Japanese people, according to the official.
Lavrov told Matsumoto that his country will decide specifically what kind of additional support it will extend to Japan by taking into account Tokyo's request, the official added.
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Additional units of rescuers from Russian Federation to fly in Japan
MOSCOW, March 14 (Itar-Tass) -- Another group of Russian rescuers and two nuclear experts from the Russian state corporation Rosatom flied to Japan from Moscow, the information department in the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations told Itar-Tass on Monday.
“An airplane Il-76 took off at 4 p.m. Moscow time on Monday from the Ramenskoye airfield outside Moscow to Tokyo. The airplane is carrying 50 rescuers from the Leader major rescue task force and the special rescue equipment,” the EMERCOM information department reported. “Japan did not ask for the help of the teams of rescue dog handlers, therefore, only the rescuers flied to Japan,” the information department said.
Two Rosatom nuclear experts flied by the same special flight together with the Russian rescuers. “These two nuclear experts flied to Japan to give the assistance to their Japanese colleagues and to provide for the non-stop information to Rosatom about the current information on the emergency reactors at the Japanese Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant,” the Rosatom deputy general director Alexander Lokshin, who heads the Rosatom emergency headquarters on the natural disaster in Japan, told a press briefing in Rosatom on Monday.
“The airplane will make an intermediate landing in Krasnoyarsk to take aboard 25 rescuers from the Siberian regional emergencies center,” the EMERCOM information department reported.
“The Siberian rescuers have the equipment and the outfits to remove the debris and to perform chemical and radiation reconnaissance missions. They are ready for the autonomous work within two weeks,” the press service of the Siberian regional EMERCOM center reported. The team of Siberian rescuers include those who had already worked in the earthquake zone on the Iturup Island in 1994 and on Sakhalin in 1995.
An airplane An-74 with 25 rescuers is to take off from the Khabarovsk airport.
“The mission of our rescuers is to search for people under the debris, recover injured people and to give the first medical aid to them,” the EMERCOM information department reported. “The Russian rescuers will work on their own for 15 days at first and may be further with additional food supplies to be made for them,” the EMERCOM information department added.
ITAR-TASS News agency