Japan plans to double its emergency fund for victims of natural disasters, such as the deadly New Year's Eve earthquake, to 1000 trillion yen ($6.2 billion), the government said on Tuesday. The 1.7 magnitude earthquake on January 5 killed at least 222 people in central Japan, destroying many homes and infrastructure.
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Continued support is needed for the reconstruction of disaster-affected areas," Hiroshi Moriya, deputy government spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday. For the next Japanese fiscal year from April 2024 to the end of March 2025, the government will increase its emergency fund from 500 billion yen to 1000 trillion yen, Hiroshi Moriya added. This revised budget will have to be submitted to Parliament for validation.
Last Sunday, during a visit to the Noto Peninsula, devastated by the New Year's Eve earthquake, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also promised to release more than 100 billion yen (about 630 million euros) by the end of January to improve the immediate living conditions of those affected.
16,700 people still in evacuation centres
More than two weeks after the disaster, 16,700 people are still living in evacuation centers, some without running water, in Ishikawa prefecture, which includes the Noto Peninsula. Local officials have told Kishida of their public health concerns, fearing the spread of infectious diseases, such as Covid or influenza, in overcrowded shelters.
The quake is the first to kill more than 100 people in Japan since the quake in Kumamoto, which killed 276 people in 2016. Located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Japan is one of the countries with the most frequent earthquakes.
The archipelago is haunted by the memory of the terrible magnitude 9.0 earthquake followed by a giant tsunami in March 2011 on its northeastern coast, a disaster that left some 20,000 dead or missing. The disaster also led to the Fukushima nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.