Japan approves US $ 49 billion quake budget
JAPAN: Japan said Friday it would extend an evacuation zone around a
crippled nuclear plant and announced a US $49 billion reconstruction
budget for areas devastated by the quake and tsunami.
It was the first special budget approved by Prime Minister Naoto
Kan’s cabinet since the disaster hit northeast Japan on March 11, wiping
entire towns off the map and leaving more than 27,000 people dead or
missing.
The four trillion yen ($49 billion) budget would cover restoration
work such as clearing massive amounts of rubble and building temporary
housing for the thousands of people who lost their homes in the
disaster.
The government said it was also planning to widen the evacuation zone
around the Fukushima atomic plant which has been leaking radiation since
it was severely damaged by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. The
government said Friday, six weeks after the country’s worst post-war
disaster, that it would extend the evacuation zone to areas beyond the
20-kilometre (12-mile) no-go zone where radiation levels have been
rising.
“There are some areas... where radiation materials from the plant are
accumulating and radiation levels are getting higher,” said the top
government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano.
“We are sorry for people in the zone, but considering the impact on
their health, we want to ask them to evacuate,” said Edano, adding the
measure would take effect in about a month.
Embattled plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has
said it aims to cool reactors and start reducing radiation from the
facility within three months and expects to achieve cold shutdown within
six to nine months.
Kan’s cabinet plans to submit the supplementary budget for devastated
areas to parliament on April 28, aiming to pass it by May 2 with the
expected support of the conservative opposition, which controls the
upper house.
Some 1.20 trillion yen, the biggest portion, would be spent on public
works projects such as the restoration of roads, ports and farmland.
The government will not issue fresh bonds but plans to divert some
funds originally aimed at supporting the pension programme and child
allowances and slash plans to cancel highway tolls.
Kan, under pressure to reduce the nation’s huge debt, plans another
extra budget as early as June for disaster reconstruction, raising total
costs to 10 trillion yen, local media said.
Japan has said the cost of rebuilding could be as much as 25 trillion
yen while the area close to the Fukushima plant may be uninhabitable for
years as a result of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl
in 1986.
A 20-kilometre (13-mile) no-go zone around the plant came into effect
Friday, with police erecting checkpoints to prevent people returning to
their homes within the high-radiation area. Television pictures showed
several cars being turned away.
More than 85,000 people have moved to shelters from areas around the
plant, including from a wider 30-kilometre evacuation zone, where people
were first told to stay indoors and later urged to leave.
The ban can be enforced with detentions or 100,000 yen ($1,200) fines
but one member from each household will be allowed to make a short
authorised and monitored trip into the zone to collect personal
belongings.
TOKYO, Friday, AFP |