Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to cancel a planned series of tours to four countries -- Belgium, France, Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- scheduled for Wednesday to July 18, judging that he should prioritize disaster response measures following significant damage caused by record heavy rains, mainly in the western parts of the country, according to sources.
The government plans to designate the natural disaster as a disaster of extreme severity, the sources said.
In a government emergency response headquarters meeting at the Prime Minister's Office on Monday morning, Abe expressed his intention to actively discuss the designation as a disaster of extreme severity, saying, "The government will properly take fiscal measures so that local governments can devote themselves to their efforts for emergency measures and rehabilitation work without fiscal worries."
If the damage caused by the heavy rains is designated a disaster of extreme severity, the rate of subsidies by the central government to disaster recovery projects of local governments would increase to up to about 90 percent.
The prime minister has instructed related government ministries and agencies to establish teams to support disaster victims. The teams will consider providing relief supplies and dispatching employees to afflicted local governments, and how to prepare and improve the living environment for evacuation centers, such as taking measures against heat at such facilities.
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