Embassy evacuates Thai citizens from quake sites in Japan

BANGKOK, April 17 (TNA) - The Thai embassy in Tokyo has set up a coordination centre to provide assistance to Thai citizens affected by the powerful quake that hit southern Japan and has also dispatched five buses to help evacuate them. Currently, there are approximately 200 Thai people, living in Kumamoto, the epicentre of the quakes. The embassy will cooperate with the Thai consulate in Osaka and volunteers in providing necessary assistance to Thai citizens in the disaster area. By early Sunday, the embassy sent four buses to Beppu area and another bus to Yufuin School to evacuate Thais to Fukuoka. More than 40 people are known to have died and hundreds more people have been injured in the two powerful earthquakes that struck the south-west Japanese island of Kyushu. (TNA)