2024-01-26T12:51:27+00:00
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/ The Japanese government estimated, on Friday, the losses of the earthquake that struck the country on New Year’s Day at about 16 billion euros, expecting the amount to rise more than that.
An earthquake struck central Japan on January 1, killing more than 230 people.
This assessment includes damage to buildings and infrastructure (roads, airports, networks) in the hardest-hit Ishikawa Prefecture, as well as in neighboring Toyama and Niigata Prefectures.
A government official confirmed to Agence France-Presse today that the range of cost figures is still very wide “because we are still in the process of assessing the damages,” explaining that this report was presented on Thursday during a cabinet meeting.
The official estimate of between 1,100 billion and 2,600 billion yen exceeds initial partial damage calculations made by the private sector in early January.
However, the total cost of the earthquake is expected to be much lower than that caused by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan in 2011, which the Japanese government estimated at the time caused losses of about 16,900 billion yen, which was equivalent to 147 billion euros at the time.
This assessment did not take into account the disruptions to economic activity, nor the Fukushima nuclear accident caused by the tsunami, which caused costs (due to environmental decontamination work, decommissioning of the plant over several decades, and compensation for evacuees) that could eventually amount to hundreds of billions of euros.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government put the finishing touches on immediate measures on Thursday to improve the living conditions of people evacuated after the January 1 earthquake, rebuild the affected areas and stimulate tourism in the region.
Japan experiences hundreds of earthquakes every year, although most do not cause damage due to strict building regulations imposed for decades.
But there are many old buildings, especially in rural areas such as the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, the epicenter of the Jan. 1 earthquake.