Prime Minister of Japan Minister fired over disparaging statements

Masahiro Imamura

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has accepted the resignation of Minister for post-disaster reconstruction Masahiro since the beginning. On Wednesday, April 26, RIA Novosti reported.

On his resignation, told journalists the Minister after the visit of the Prime Minister’s office.

The scandal erupted on Tuesday when Imamura stated that the damage from the devastating 2011 tsunami is estimated in 25 trillion yens (about 227 billion), and added that “it is good that it happened in Tohoku, as closer to the capital would be a very huge amount”.

Despite the fact that he immediately apologized for his words, calling them inappropriate, the opposition saw it as a disregard for the residents of the affected prefectures. The Prime Minister also was forced to apologize for speaking out since the beginning.

Another unpleasant incident happened three weeks ago, when Imamura stated that the return of evacuated residents after the accident at the NPP “Fukushima-1” is “their own business”. In addition, he demanded that asked the question of the journalist “to shut up and never more here not to come.”

March 11, 2011 was the strongest in the history of Japan earthquake with magnitude 9.1, which caused a tsunami with a wave height of over 40 meters. The storm made landfall, becoming the cause of the accident at NPP “Fukushima-1” where has failed cooling system of reactors. This has led to breach of containment buildings and radioactive contamination of the terrain. The area around the station has left about 300 thousand inhabitants, as a result of the disaster and the subsequent accident killed 18 thousand people.

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