Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Tuesday sent a message of condolences to his Japanese counterpart Kishida Fumio over losses of human lives and property caused by the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Ishikawa Prefecture and adjacent areas in central Japan a day earlier, Vietnam’s foreign ministry reported on the same day.

Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son did the same to his Japanese counterpart Minister Kamikawa Yoko on the same day. 

The 7.6-magnitude quake shook the Noto Peninsula in the central prefecture of Ishikawa on the afternoon of New Year’s Day, destroying buildings, sparking fires, and triggering tsunami alerts in six prefectures, according to international media.

More than 45,000 households in Ishikawa were without power and upwards of 30,000 people had to be evacuated after the earthquake, CNN cited a local government official.

Following the tremor, a tsunami with a height of over 1.2 meters lashed the coast of Wajima City in Ishikawa on the same afternoon.

The earthquake has taken at least 62 lives, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported, citing officials from Ishikawa.

Most of the fatalities have been confirmed in the cities of Wajima and Suzu on the Noto Peninsula.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency later lifted all tsunami warnings along the country’s western coast on the same day.

As of 5:00 pm on Tuesday (Japan time), there had been no report of any Vietnamese casualties in the disasters in Japan, the Vietnam News Agency quoted the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan as saying.

On Monday evening, the embassy provided evacuation addresses for Vietnamese nationals living in Ishikawa and neighboroing Niigata and Toyama Prefectures, said Phan Tien Hoang, first secretary and head of the labor management board at the embassy.

All Vietnamese citizens living near the quake’s epicenter were evacuated to safe shelters where they were provided with essential necessities, Hoang said.

Those Vietnamese interns working in Toyama, Fukui, and Ishikawa Prefectures were safe after the massive quake, according to the Public Interest Foundation International Manpower Development Organization, which manages these interns.

Affected Vietnamese citizens who need help can contact Vietnamese representative agencies in Japan at +81-80-3590-9136, +81-80-20346868, or +81-90-1255-5537 of the Vietnamese Embassy in Tokyo, or +81-90-4769-6789 or +81-92263-7668 of the Vietnamese Consulates General in Osaka and Fukuoka, respectively.

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