Govt should send staff to help distribute donations
Nearly three months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, only about 15 percent of donations collected through various channels is said to have reached people affected by the disaster.
The distribution of this money has been extremely slow. The central government and local governments in disaster-hit areas must make all-out efforts to promptly pass these relief funds to disaster victims.
A panel administered by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to decide on which areas should get how much of this money has compiled a report on the actual situation regarding the provision of these funds.
A total of about 250 billion yen has been donated through such organizations as the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Central Community Chest of Japan. Of this, about 80 billion yen has been sent to 15 disaster-affected prefectural governments as the first batch of relief funds, but less than half of this--about 15 percent of the total donations--has reached victims' pockets.
The rest of the money is expected to be given to disaster-hit prefectures in a second round of distribution. One standard for money handed out has been that owners of "totally destroyed" homes get the twice the amount given to owners of "partly destroyed" homes. Decisions on the actual amount of money to be distributed are left up to each local government.
===
More flexibility needed
It is disturbing that much of the donated money has not reached disaster victims. Part of the problem stems from the fact that many local governments lost their administrative functions due to the March 11 disaster and are unable to arrange procedures for distributing money to disaster-affected people. There have been significant delays in work to determine whether a house has been completely or partly destroyed and in issuing disaster damage certificates verifying the level of property damage.
Donations directly provided to disaster-hit local governments from a number of organizations, including the Yomiuri Light and Humanity Association charity, have also reported similar problems.
We think the central government should send a sufficient number of staff to help the distribution of money and improve the situation.
Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Ritsuo Hosokawa has at last announced a plan to survey the actual situation facing local governments that have been unable to distribute donations quickly, and send staff to help if necessary. We hope the government will swiftly implement these measures.
There also needs to be more flexibility in making official designations of damage levels.
Private insurance companies have simplified procedures for earthquake insurance payouts by recognizing all houses in certain areas, based on satellite photos, as having been totally destroyed. The insurance industry as a whole has paid out more than 900 billion yen to about 500,000 policyholders.
===
Delays invite disappointment
Although it is only natural that donations should be distributed fairly, it would be pointless if the money does not reach disaster victims when they need it for living and other expenses. We are concerned that the delay in distribution may have disappointed people across the nation and around the world who have generously sent donations.
We hope officials in affected areas will make innovative efforts to pass on donated money as soon as possible by giving consideration to the actual situation on the ground, such as by uniformly providing people in certain areas with an amount of money for partial damage as a provisional measure before getting around to officially categorizing the damage as complete or partial.
There have been questions raised about flaws in the law covering paying condolence money from public coffers to people who lost family members in the disaster.
Siblings are not included in the definition of bereaved relatives under the law on providing such disaster condolence grants. This means that a man who lost his elder brother, with whom he had been living, is not entitled to receive condolence money.
Claiming that such cases are not exceptional in the March 11 disaster, a group of lawyers last week called on the government to revise the law. We believe this is worth considering.
Report on nuclear safety an intl pledge by Japan
A government report released Tuesday on the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant strongly indicates that fundamental revisions to the nation's safety measures on nuclear power plants are essential.
The government will explain the report at a ministerial meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency to start in Vienna on June 20.
Taking lessons from the ongoing nuclear crisis, the report listed 28 items and the policies the government was adopting in connection with them, including reviews of regulatory and legal systems on nuclear power, improving responses to accidents, and ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants.
This nation obviously was not fully prepared for such a disaster. In a sense, this report is Japan's international pledge on nuclear safety. The government should quickly give substance to the plan, starting with whatever items it can carry out immediately.
===
New independent watchdog
To clarify where the responsibility for nuclear safety regulations lies, the report said the government will consider making the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency a new organization independent from the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry.
The report also said the method of releasing information on nuclear accidents should be improved. The government was criticized for its delay in disclosing information on nuclear contamination and other matters.
It also took a harsh look at measures to improve nuclear plant safety.
After the crisis at the Fukushima plant, the government demanded nuclear power plants around the country improve anti-tsunami measures for emergency power sources. The report, however, went a step further by calling for changes in the design and structure of nuclear power plants.
The report cited the example of a nuclear power plant with several reactors. At the Fukushima plant, reactors shared power sources and a central control room. This complicated responses to the crisis. Water contaminated with radioactive material leaked from one reactor building to another through shared facilities.
To prevent this from recurring, the report said measures should be taken so responses can be made to each reactor accident separately without affecting others.
The report also said the location of pools to store spent nuclear fuel rods should be moved. The pools are 30 to 40 meters above ground at the Fukushima nuclear plant. This made cooling the spent nuclear fuel extremely difficult.
===
Govt panel to probe causes
Nuclear safety standards will be raised drastically. Large-scale renovations cannot be avoided to improve the safety of existing nuclear reactors.
The Nuclear Incident Investigation and Verification Committee held its first meeting Tuesday. The independent panel, comprising 10 experts in various fields--but not nuclear science--is headed by Yotaro Hatamura, professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo who specializes in the scientific study of human error.
The panel will analyze the government report and conduct a full-scale study on how the prime minister and the other ministers responded to the accident to clarify causes of the crisis.
Why did such a serious accident occur at a nuclear power plant in Japan, which the government and electric power industry assured us was safe? And why is it taking such a long time to resolve the situation? A wide-ranging investigation is necessary to answer these questions and to restore public confidence in the safety of nuclear plants.
The panel has a very important role to play.
0 comments:
Post a Comment