Tokyo becomes a ghost town as people flock to airports

AREAS of Tokyo usually packed with office workers crammed into sushi restaurants and noodle shops were eerily quiet. Many schools were closed.

Companies allowed workers to stay home. Long queues formed at airports.

As Japanese authorities struggled to avert disaster at an earthquake-battered nuclear complex 240km to the north, parts of Tokyo resembled a ghost town.

Many stocked up on food and stayed indoors or simply left, transforming one of the world’s biggest and densely populated cities into a shell of its usual self.

Radiation in Tokyo has been negligible, briefly touching three times the normal rate Tuesday, smaller than a dental X-ray. Yesterday, winds over the Fuku- shima nuclear-power plant gusted out to sea, keeping levels close to normal.

But that does little to allay public anxiety about an ailing 40-year-old nuclear complex with three reactors in partial meltdown and a fourth with spent atomic fuel exposed to the atmosphere.

“Radiation moves faster than we do,” said Steven Swanson, a 43-year-old American who moved to Tokyo in December with his Japanese wife to help with her family business.

He is staying indoors but is tempted to leave. “It’s scary. It’s a triple threat with the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear radiation leaks. It makes you wonder what’s next.”

A number of major events have been cancelled, including the World Figure Skating Championships, Japan Fashion Week and the Tokyo International Anime Fair.

Some foreign bankers, flush with money, are fleeing fast, some on private jets. BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered and Morgan Stanley were among banks whose staff have left since Friday, industry sources say.

Thousands of people have inundated private jet companies with requests for evacuation flights, sending prices surging.

“I got a request yesterday to fly 14 people from Tokyo to Hong Kong ... they did not care about price,” said Jackie Wu, chief operations officer at Hong Kong Jet, a newly established private jet subsidiary of China’s HNA Group.

A chartered plane from Tokyo to Australia, one way, was $265,000 (€190,855), 20% higher than usual, he said.

Mike Walsh, chief of Asia Jet, said they had run three evacuation flights to Hong Kong from Tokyo by early yesterday.

Electronics shops are selling out of small, portable Geiger counters that measure radiation. Strawberry Linux, a Tokyo-based company, is out of stock, said its owner, Masahiro Ochiai.

Some areas of Tokyo were hit by rolling blackouts and reduced train services as the nuclear plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, struggled to make up for a drop in power capacity.

At Sony Corp’s headquarters in Tokyo’s Shinagawa district, only 120 staff of the usual 6,000 were working. Staff were told to stay at home as much as possible due to difficulties with train transportation, said Sony spokeswoman Mami Imada.

Thousands showed up at nearby airports without tickets, hoping to book flights out of Tokyo.

Anthony Blick, an expatriate in Tokyo, said he would prefer to leave: “I’m worried about the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. There’s a lot of information out there but unfortunately a lot of it is conflicting.”

Many schools were closed, but one mother said she preferred her children in school: “I want them to do everything that we are allowed to do as long as it is safe... If I show them that I’m nervous, my children will get nervous.”