Temple University assisting in Japan campus evacuation

Update: A spokesperson for Hart confirms the university is assisting students who wish to evacuate, but the evacuation is not mandatory.

“We want to help our students who wish to leave Japan” evacuate according to the State Department’s recommendations,” spokesperson Hillel Hoffman told NewsWorks. “This is a fluid situation.”

A charter flight will leave Sunday from Japan (that’s Saturday here), and is open to the remaining 200 U.S. students at the campus — not all of whom are Temple students. About 100 TUJ students left of their own volition after the quake struck.

Temple University is evacuating its Tokyo campus based on a warning about radiation from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.

 

President Ann Weaver Hart writes, “We are working with our contracted partner for international emergencies, International SOS, to arrange for a charter that will take our estimated 200 remaining U.S. students from Tokyo to the U.S. via Hong Kong.”

While some have already left and faculty are also welcomed to participate in the evacuation, TUJ Dean Bruce Stronach, a U.S. citizen, has decided to stay. Most of the Tokyo campus’ non-U.S. students will remain in Japan for now.

We’re awaiting word from Temple’s University Communications office.