Japan Governors to Review Disaster Victim Support System

July 26, 2018

Sapporo- Japanese prefectural governors agreed on Thursday to set up a working group to review the system designed to financially support disaster victims' efforts to rebuild their lives.

The agreement came on the first day of a two-day meeting of the National Governors' Association in Sapporo in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido. It is the association's first meeting held after the June 18 major earthquake in northern Osaka Prefecture and torrential rains that hit western and southwestern regions earlier this month.

"We must be a group that will act immediately and produce results," Kiyoshi Ueda, governor of the eastern prefecture of Saitama and chairman of the association, said at the meeting. "Let's combine our wisdom."

The existing support system for disaster victims has been criticized for setting unfair requirements for payment of aid money, which comes from a fund set up by prefectures across Japan.

The working group will discuss the proposed expansion of the scope of payment, now limited to housing units that have been destroyed or badly damaged, to newly include partially damaged units. The outcome of the discussion will be reported at the association's meeting in November.

At Monday's meeting, governors of disaster-hit prefectures, including Okayama, where heavy rain claimed numerous lives, voiced their gratitude for the support they received, including the dispatches of prefectural staff members. Jiji Press