Balkan Countries Await News After Quake Shakes Japan

Aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami | Photo by: FoNet/AP

An earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale hit Japan on Friday afternoon, and walls of waves from the tsunami caused by the quake have begun hitting the country's shores, sweeping away cars and ships, and even buildings.

Reports said the tsunami has caused significant damage in north-east Japan, while at least 30 people are reported killed.

Many phones lines in the country have been knocked out, making it difficult for embassies to contact citizens living in Japan.

The Serbian Embassy in Tokyo has said that it still does not know if any of the approximately 50 Serbian citizens in Japan were injured in the earthquake or subsequent tsunami.

“Several our citizens called to say they are well, but the phone lines are down so it’s not easy to get a connection,” an embassy officer told Balkan Insight.

Serbian President Boris Tadic, who was on a two-day visit to Japan this week, arrived safely in Belgrade early this morning.

Macedonia, who does not have an embassy in Japan, has said that it has no information that any of its citizens were injured or killed in the largest quake to hit Japan since records began.

"So far we have no information of injured or killed Macedonian nationals," the spokesman for the Macedonian Foreign Affairs Ministry Borce Stamov told Balkan Insight. "Since Macedonia has no embassy in Japan, the Macedonian embassy in China is in charge of this country. They will contact the Japanese authorities about possible Macedonian victims but it is still too early to tell," Stamov says.

Nada Jankovic from Bosnia's Foreign Affairs Ministry told Balkan Insight that there are no Bosnian citizens in the area hit by the earthquake. "There are some 60 Bosnians living in Japan, mostly in Tokyo, and we have received confirmation from our embassy that all of them are well and out of danger," Jankovic said, adding that because power and phone lines are down for about four million homes in and around Tokyo, it is difficult to maintain phone contact with the citizens.

Kosovo's Foreign Ministry has said that the five Kosovo citizens living in Japan, including the ambassador, are out of harm's way.

Tirana also announced that its citizens were not in danger. An Albanian diplomat based in Tokyo, Hamdi Demo, told local media that "the Albanians currently in Japan, both diplomatic staff and civilians, were safe".

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed through a statement that there have been no Albanian victims in Japan, noting that there are some two dozen Albanian citizens in the country, most of them students.

Eldin Hadzovic, Sinisa Jakov Marusic, Gordana Andric, Petrit Collaku and Besar Likmeta contributed to this report