Suga, in Fukushima, vows to continue recovery efforts for 2011 disasters-hit areas

Sep 28, 2020 | News On Japan

Sep 28, 2020 (Japan Today) - Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga vowed Saturday to press forward with reconstruction efforts for areas devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, as he visited the Fukushima nuclear power plant crippled by the disasters.

He made the comment after there was no mention of the disasters, or rebuilding work for the northeastern Tohoku region, in his Cabinet's basic policies adopted at its first meeting last week.

Suga told reporters during his first official trip since he took office that when he formed the new cabinet, he wrote of the need to continue reconstruction efforts in instructions handed out to all the cabinet members.

"There is no recovery of Tohoku, without recovery of Fukushima, and there is no revival of Japan without recovery of Tohoku. This is a basic policy of my cabinet," he said.

Fukushima is one of three prefectures in northeastern Japan hit hardest by the disasters that left nearly 15,900 people dead and more than 2,500 unaccounted for.

The Abe administration's set of basic policies included the pillar of disaster recovery from its inception in 2012. Suga said Friday during a meeting on the rebuilding of the devastated areas that he will "inherit the policy" from the previous administration.

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