Japan yesterday announced a US$49 billion special budget for areas devastated by last month’s earthquake and tsunami, and said it would extend an evacuation zone around a nuclear plant crippled by the disaster.
It was the first reconstruction budget approved by Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s Cabinet since the tragedy in northeast Japan on March 11 that wiped entire towns off the map and left more than 27,000 people dead or missing.
The ¥4 trillion (US$49 billion) budget will 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 Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which has been leaking radiation since it was hammered by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in the country’s worst post-war disaster.
The evacuation zone will be extended to areas beyond the 20km 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,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
“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 Co (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.
Families forced to flee their homes angrily shouted at TEPCO boss Masataka Shimizu yesterday as he apologized for the disaster.
“When can we go home?” one emotional evacuee demanded as Shimizu bowed deeply in apology during a visit to dozens of people living in an evacuation center shown on the TV Asahi network.
One man sat on his chair with his arms crossed, angrily ignoring Shimizu and other TEPCO officials as they knelt at his feet apologizing.
For more than a month the families, like many others, have been living in a public hall with their few possessions, their spaces on the floor marked out by low cardboard walls to give them a little privacy.
Shimizu earlier yesterday met with Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato, who also vented his anger at the TEPCO head in front of journalists and television crews.
With tears in his eyes, Sato showed him newspaper articles about 6,000 children who have been forced to flee their homes which they may not be able to return to for years.
“They have been scattered across the nation, but they want to come home as early as possible. Do you understand how they feel?” he asked.
More than 85,000 people have moved to shelters from areas around the plant, including from a wider 30km evacuation zone, where people were first told to stay indoors and later urged to leave.
The 20km no-go zone around the plant came into effect yesterday, with police erecting checkpoints to prevent people returning to their homes within the high-radiation area. Television pictures showed several cars being turned away.
The ban can be enforced with detentions or ¥100,000 fines, but one member from each household will be allowed to make a short authorized and monitored trip into the zone to collect personal belongings.
Japan has said the cost of rebuilding could be as much as ¥25 trillion, while the area close to the plant may be uninhabitable for years as a result of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
The Cabinet plans to submit the supplementary budget for devastated areas to parliament on Thursday, aiming to pass it by May 2.
About ¥1.2 trillion, the biggest portion, will be spent on public works projects, such as the restoration of roads, ports and farmland.
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