U.S. Ambassador Issues Message to Americans in Japan

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2011 — U.S. Ambas­sador to Japan John V. Roos today issued a mes­sage to Amer­i­cans liv­ing there to bring them up to date on the after­math of the earth­quake and tsuna­mi that struck the island nation last week.
Here is the text of the ambassador’s mes­sage:

Today our hearts remain with our Japan­ese friends who, after suf­fer­ing this dev­as­tat­ing tragedy just four days ago, have to under­take recov­ery and recon­struc­tion and address the ongo­ing nuclear emergency. 

We under­stand that many of you are anx­ious and have ques­tions in the shad­ow of the Fukushi­ma emer­gency, since we are in the midst of a com­plex, con­stant­ly chang­ing, and unpre­dictable sit­u­a­tion. In this flu­id sit­u­a­tion, our com­mit­ment to our cit­i­zens is to accu­mu­late accu­rate infor­ma­tion and assess it suf­fi­cient­ly in order to make impor­tant judgments. 

Since the first reports of trou­ble with the reac­tors, Amer­i­can nuclear experts have worked around the clock to ana­lyze data, mon­i­tor devel­op­ments, and pro­vide clear assess­ments on the poten­tial dan­gers. While at times we have had only lim­it­ed access to infor­ma­tion, I am per­son­al­ly com­mit­ted to assur­ing that our experts have as much access and infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble, and the nec­es­sary resources to under­stand the sit­u­a­tion. I have per­son­al­ly been deeply engaged in these efforts. 

After a care­ful analy­sis of data, radi­a­tion lev­els, and dam­age assess­ments of all units at Fukushi­ma, our experts are in agree­ment with the response and mea­sures tak­en by Japan­ese tech­ni­cians, includ­ing their rec­om­mend­ed 20 km radius for evac­u­a­tion and addi­tion­al shel­ter-in-place rec­om­men­da­tions out to 30 km. 

Let me also address reports of very low lev­els of radi­a­tion out­side the evac­u­a­tion area detect­ed by U.S. and Japan­ese sen­si­tive instru­men­ta­tion. This bears very care­ful mon­i­tor­ing, which we are doing. If we assess that the radi­a­tion pos­es a threat to pub­lic health, we will share that infor­ma­tion and pro­vide rel­e­vant guid­ance immediately. 

The Unit­ed States will con­tin­ue to work around the clock to pro­vide pre­cise and up-to-date infor­ma­tion sup­port­ed by expert analy­sis to ensure the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of our cit­i­zens and to help Japan in its time of great need. U.S. cit­i­zens in need of emer­gency assis­tance should send an e‑mail to JapanEmergencyUSC@state.gov with detailed infor­ma­tion about their loca­tion and con­tact infor­ma­tion, and mon­i­tor the U.S. Depart­ment of State web­site at travel.state.gov.

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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