Japan Quake Reconstruction Could Take Ten Years

Homeland Security Newswire - April 27, 2011

Yesterday an advisory panel to the Japanese government announced that it could take a decade to rebuild Japan after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami wiped out much of north-eastern Japan; the council said that the first three years alone would be devoted to building roads and erecting temporary housing for the thousands of families that have been displaced; rebuilding towns could take another four years and a full recovery might take even longer; the damage from the recent quake was far greater than the large quake that struck Japan in 1995; Prime Minister Kan's cabinet has approved almost $50 billion in spending for post-earthquake rebuilding

Yesterday an advisory panel to the Japanese government announced that it could take a decade to rebuild Japan after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami wiped out much of north-eastern Japan.

Jun Iio, a member of Japan’s Reconstruction Design Council, formed by Prime Minister Kan to advise the government’s reconstruction efforts, said that the first three years alone would be devoted to building roads and erecting temporary housing for the thousands of families that have been displaced.

According to Iio, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, rebuilding towns could take another four years and a full recovery might take even longer.

He explained, “We have to bear in mind that the area afflicted by the disaster is much larger than Kobe,” in reference to the massive earthquake that struck Japan in 1995.

In addition, Io says the area hit hardest by the earthquake has exposed some of the underlying several logistical and political weaknesses of Japan.

“Japan’s concentration of power in the central government, the gap between the countryside and big urban cities, became clear in the latest disaster. The disaster showed that local regions should develop independently for their own security. It is about creating a new Japan where regions will be independent. That is what northeast Japan must achieve.”

Complicating recovery efforts is the fact that the region has a high proportion of senior citizens and a low birthrate.

Makato Iokibe, president of the National Defense Academy and the chairman of the advisory council, urged lawmakers to put aside partisan bickering.

“Reconstruction efforts go beyond political issues. We can invite opinion from opposition parties as well as the ruling party,” he said.

The delicate political truce formed in the immediate wake of the disaster between the two parties has already collapsed.

As Japan begins to rebuild Iokibe suggested that “homes, schools and hospitals should be built on higher land.”

He continued, “For the port worker and fishery workers, those who work along the coast, a sturdy concrete building of five stories high should be built and they should work in there.”

Other suggestions include using tsunami debris to build a large hill that can be used as a park and future evacuation site.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Kan’s cabinet approved almost $50 billion in spending for post-earthquake rebuilding.

Future reconstruction packages will likely require an increase of taxes as well as government borrowing, as Japan’s economy is still struggling from the global recession.

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