11 April,2011 08:02 AM IST | | Agencies
Prime Minister Naoto Kan paid another visit to Japan's tsunami-devastated coast yesterday, promising officials in a fishing-dependent city that his government will do whatever it can to help.
Kan visited Ishinomaki, a coastal city of 1,63,000 people in Miyagi, one of the prefectures hardest hit by the March 11 earthquake that killed as many as 25,000 people, destroyed miles of coastline and left tens of thousands homeless.
Japanese PM Naoto Kan speak to workers at a fishery at Ishinomaki yesterday
"The government will do its utmost to help you," Kan, dressed in blue work clothes, told people. "We will support you so that you can resume fishing."
Ishinomaki Mayor Hiroshi Kameyama told him the government needs to quickly build temporary homes for the 17,000 city residents who lost theirs and are living in shelters.
More than 2,600 people from Ishinomaki were killed in the disaster and another 2,800 are missing. Boats were also destroyed, crippling the fishing industry that accounts for 40 percent of the city's economy.
Meanwhile, in Tokyo, thousands of people carrying "No nukes" signs gathered for a rally in a park then marched through the streets chanting and beating drums.
Protesters demanding the closure of a different plant chanted "No more Fukushima" as they marched through government headquarters and past the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
Going to polls
JAPANESE voters have begun casting ballots in local elections that may influence whether Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Democratic Party of Japan forms a coalition with the opposition after last month's earthquake.
