Japan’s central government has approved a $50 billion expenditure over five years to help with restoring areas hit by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake — a 9.0-magnitude seismic jolt — and the follow up tsunami that, among other things, crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant 180 miles northeast of Tokyo.
The governments of three prefectures, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, are expected to come up with $180 million to add to the restoration funding. The government approved the deal after the local governments argued that the original sum they were asked to provide, $240 million, was too high, negotiating the deal for $180 million, instead.
The Japan Times reported that the local share represents a shift in policy. Until this point, the central government had paid 100 percent of the restoration and recovery funding.
The latest funding pool includes $30 billion for rebuilding homes and communities, $3.25 billion for survivors and $4 billion to help with decommissioning work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Three major Japanese banks, also made funding news Wednesday by approving loans of $2.26 billion for the Tokyo Electric Power Company, owners of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, which suffered a triple meltdown after the tsunami event knocked out its back up cooling systems.
The loan is a vote of confidence in TEPCO, media reports say, as the company has managed to trim costs and show a profit for the past two years. But TEPCO also owns the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, and that plant remains closed along with all of the country’s reactors, while safety upgrades at the plants and the political fallout from the March 2011 events continue.