New Year’s celebrations in Japan were interrupted by a powerful earthquake that caused over 200 deaths. Now the Japanese government is working to pick up the pieces, rebuild, and help those who’ve survived.

From Japan Today. The Japanese government on Thursday designated the powerful earthquake that rocked Ishikawa Prefecture and other parts of central Japan on New Year’s Day as a “disaster of extreme severity,” boosting subsidies for reconstruction work in affected communities.

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Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government aims to expand its financial support for local authorities to implement measures such as the speedy reconstruction of roads and farmland, following the magnitude-7.6 temblor that left 213 people dead and 52 unaccounted for. …

The death toll includes eight people who are believed to have died due to the deterioration of their health following the quake, in some cases because of stress associated with evacuation. …

Over 25,000 people remained in nearly 400 evacuation centers in Ishikawa Prefecture as of Wednesday afternoon. …

Over 3,100 residents were still cut off due to severed roads mostly in Wajima in the prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, while around 59,000 households in cities including Wajima and Suzu had no water supply, according to the prefectural government. …

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(Excerpt from Japan Today. Photo Credit: 防衛省・自衛隊 – X, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)