Japan announces $49b reconstruction budget

Japan said it would extend an evacuation zone around a crippled nuclear plant and announced a $49 billion reconstruction budget for areas devastated by the quake and tsunami.It was the first special budget approved by Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s cabinet since the disaster hit northeast Japan on March 11, wiping entire towns off the map and leaving more than 27,000 people dead or missing. The four trillion yen ($49 billion) budget would cover restoration work such as clearing massive amounts of rubble and building temporary housing for the thousands of people who lost their homes in the disaster. The government said it was also planning to widen the evacuation zone around the Fukushima atomic plant which has been leaking radiation since it was severely damaged by the magnitude 9.0 earthquakes and tsunami.The government will not issue fresh bonds but plans to divert some funds originally aimed at supporting the pension programme and child allowances and slash plans to cancel highway tolls. Kan, under pressure to reduce the nations huge debt, plans another extra budget as early as June for disaster reconstruction, raising total costs to 10 trillion yen, local media said.Japan has said the cost of rebuilding could be as much as 25 trillion yen while the area close to the Fukushima plant may be uninhabitable for years as a result of the worlds worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.