Foreign Office: 'We must be prepared for bad news on missing Britons'

Peter Dominiczak12 April 2012

The Foreign Office today said it had "serious concerns" for up to 50 Britons missing in Japan.

Nearly 400 others have not yet made contact with UK relatives, although it is thought this may be because of the damage to communication networks.

Britain's ambassador in Japan, David Warren, said there were still no confirmed reports of British deaths but made clear that some were to be expected.

Speaking from Sendai, where consular staff have set up an operations base, Mr Warren told Radio 4's Today programme: "Given the scale of the disaster here, while we have no confirmed British casualties as yet, we must be prepared to hear news of them. It is still very early days in terms of clarifying the total numbers of people who may have died." Mr Warren added: "We have a list of British nationals who are unaccounted for, which we are working through to establish their safety.

"We are continually being contacted by people who were in the earthquake zone but are safe and well. We have had three who came into our HQ here in Sendai today after we had set up our operations room, and we have had a number of telephone calls from people reporting that they are safe too."

There are about 17,000 British nationals living in Japan. A Foreign Office source told the Sun: "It's highly likely that between eight and 12 Britons are dead."

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