 JCP urges the government to compensate typhoon and quake victims The Japanese Communist Party is striving to make the government provide assistance to the victims of earthquakes in Niigata Prefecture and of typhoons that hit several prefectures in mainland Japan. It is also urging the government to take preventive measures in preparation for future natural disasters. On October 26 at the meeting of the House of Representatives Committee on Land, Infrastructure and Transport, JCP Kokuta Keiji emphasized the need to expand government assistance to local governments in order to support victims who lost their houses or whose houses were half destroyed or flooded above floor level, to build, buy or restore houses. He also pressed the government to give direct assistance to revitalize local industries such as traditional Japanese wares and the paper industry. Kokuta pointed out that programs conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport are insufficient to prevent further damages, that government budgets to deal with landslides have been reduced despite the growing possibility, and that many sites of damage have been unfixed due to the lack of appropriate budgets. He called for reevaluations and the budget problem to be urgently sorted out. At the House of Representatives plenary session on the same day, JCP representative Shiokawa Tetsuya demanded that the government provide temporary lavatories and daily commodities such as drinking water and food, arrange medical institutes or experts in evacuation shelters, provide information to prevent damage by second disasters or aftershocks, take measures to restore basic utilities, ensure transportation routes, and establish government relief task forces at disaster-stricken areas. Government officials promised to consider the JCP proposal. (end) |