Kyodo news summary -4-

0 Comments | Asian Political News, Jan 10, 2005

TOKYO, Jan. 4 Kyodo

---------- Japan eyes sending over 800 troops on tsunami relief mission

TOKYO - Japan's Defense Agency is considering dispatching more than 800 Self-Defense Forces members on a mission to provide relief in Thailand and other countries devastated by the tsunami disaster triggered by the Dec. 26 earthquake off Indonesia, government sources said Tuesday.

The size of the team, which would comprise members from all of Japan's ground, maritime and air defense forces, is unprecedented, they said.

---------- Thailand's official tsunami death toll reaches 5,187

BANGKOK - Thailand's official death toll from last week's tsunamis has reached 5,187 on Tuesday, about half of them foreigners, while nearly 4,000 people remain missing.

According to the latest figures available from the government's tsunami relief center in the country's southern province of Phuket, 2,463 of the fatalities are foreigners, 2,362 are Thais and 362 others are as yet unidentified.

---------- Japanese tsunami death toll rises to 22, 30 feared missing

TOKYO - A 57-year-old Japanese man has been confirmed killed in Sri Lanka by tsunamis generated by the magnitude 9 earthquake off Indonesia on Dec. 26, bringing the Japanese death toll in the disaster to 22 in Sri Lanka and Thailand, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Rescue workers and Japanese Embassy officials in Thailand, meanwhile, said Tuesday that information and evidence suggest more than 30 other Japanese citizens may have been swept away in southern Thailand following the tsunamis.

---------- Japan eyes SDF medical activities in Aceh

TOKYO - The government is considering dispatching medical teams from the Self-Defense Forces to Aceh Province on Indonesia's Sumatra Island, which was devastated by the Dec. 26 earthquake and subsequent tsunamis, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

''We're considering dispatching the team to the northern part of the island of Sumatra, or the Aceh areas,'' ministry Press Secretary Hatsuhisa Takashima told a press conference.

---------- Chinese citizens pledge $2.4 mil. for tsunami relief

BEIJING - Chinese citizens, including people of modest means, have pledged 20 million yuan ($2.42 million) to the Chinese Red Cross for tsunami relief in southern Asia over the past five days, a Red Cross official said Tuesday.

Of the donations and pledges, $660,000 has so far been distributed in the seven countries hardest hit by the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunamis, which have killed at least 150,000 people, Red Cross Society of China spokesman Wang Xiaohua said.