TOKYO - The Japanese government will tap over 20 billion yen ($130 million) from its reserve funds to support areas hit hard by a massive earthquake in the southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto nearly a week earlier, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Monday.
Takaichi's Cabinet will give the green light Tuesday on the use of fiscal 2026 budget's reserve funds, which total about 1 trillion yen, she told reporters in Kumamoto, the capital of the prefecture, after visiting areas devastated by last Tuesday's magnitude-7.1 temblor and exchanging views with Gov. Takashi Kimura.
Takaichi, wearing a disaster response uniform, also said that her government will designate the quake as a "disaster of extreme severity" that enables affected local governments to receive higher subsidies for reconstruction work.
"With the firm determination to do everything that the government can do, we will promptly decide what we can do for the stricken areas and those affected by the disaster and move forward proactively to implement necessary measures given the requests we have received," she said.
Takaichi's remarks come as some opposition parties have argued that the government should consider drawing up another supplementary budget for the current fiscal year to better deal with the quake disaster.
In an effort to assess local challenges and requests including improving living conditions for evacuees and quickly restoring infrastructure, Takaichi visited an evacuation shelter in the town of Hikawa and talked with evacuees earlier in the day.
With concerns growing about heatstroke and disaster-related deaths at evacuation sites with temperatures reaching 40 C in parts of the prefecture, she explained that the government will rent rooms at lodging facilities and promote secondary evacuations to such places.
She also observed from a helicopter the Aeon shopping mall in the town of Kashima where an explosion shortly after the quake killed seven people, and the site of a Nippon Paper Industries Co. plant in Yatsushiro where nine died.
The quake registered the maximum level of 7 on Japan's seismic intensity scale in the city of Uki and Hikawa, the hardest-hit areas. At seismic intensity 7, people cannot remain standing or move without crawling and may be thrown through the air, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Meanwhile, her one-day trip to the area, which comes amid falling support rates for her Cabinet in recent opinion polls, has generated backlash on social media, with some questioning its necessity.
Takaichi's Cabinet has maintained relatively high popularity since its launch last October but has recently faced falling support amid criticism of what is seen as the ruling bloc's high-handed approach to parliamentary affairs at this year's main Diet session that ended late last month.
During the 158-day session, parliament passed some controversial bills such as ones to amend a law aimed at sustaining the imperial system and to introduce criminal penalties for desecrating the national flag.
After Takaichi's plan to visit Kumamoto was announced Sunday, comments were made on social media such as, "This visit is meaningless," and "Going to the disaster area amid the ongoing confusion will only increase security costs."
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party led by Takaichi has also been criticized over a fundraising party held Tuesday night by LDP members from the prefectural assembly of Fukuoka, located near Kumamoto in Kyushu.
Tosho Matsuo, head of the party's assembly group who had defended the meeting earlier, told reporters in Fukuoka that he will resign as the leader. He has said that participants were already on their way to attend it when the quake struck and that it was "good" the meeting went ahead as planned.
