The government will designate the Niigata quakes and Typhoon Tokage as serious disasters as of next Wednesday, thus enabling affected municipalities to receive more subsidies for reconstruction work than in ordinary disasters, government officials said Friday.
The areas hit by the quakes, which have resulted in the loss of 40 lives in Niigata Prefecture since Oct. 23, and the typhoon, which swept the Japanese archipelago in late October and left more than 80 people dead, will be able to receive increased funds for the reconstruction or improvement of roads, rivers and farms.
The government will also extend increased subsidies for municipal projects to provide affordable housing for low-income families who lost their homes in the quakes, while small companies in Ojiya, Tokamachi, Yamakoshi and Kawaguchi in Niigata Prefecture will be able to obtain loans to rebuild their businesses.
Meanwhile, officials in the prefecture said the same day that the Russian Embassy in Japan has decided to donate 10.83 million yen, part of the proceeds from a charity concert, to help quake-hit residents.
The embassy held a charity concert in Tokyo on Nov. 19, featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, in memory of the victims of the school hostage crisis in the Russian Republic of North Ossetia in September.