Japan to Designate Heavy Rains in Hokuriku for More State Aid

Tokyo, Sept. 4 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese government expects to designate the heavy rains in the Hokuriku central region late last month as a disaster of extreme severity, making affected areas eligible for increased state aid for recovery projects, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Friday. She mentioned this at a meeting of the government’s emergency response headquarters on the July 28 powerful earthquake in the southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto. The heavy rains in late August mainly hit Toyama, Ishikawa and Fukui prefectures, all facing the Sea of Japan. The designation is expected to also cover a string of other severe weather events that struck the country recently, including downpour in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, in mid-August. At the headquarters meeting held at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo, Takaichi instructed relevant officials to promptly grasp the extent of damage to roads, rivers and other public civil engineering facilities. “We are still in a season in which disasters from heavy rains and other events tend to occur frequently, so we should stay on high alert with a sense of tension,” the prime minister said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]