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On September 9, 2018, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held a meeting of the Ministerial Council on the 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
The Prime Minister said in his opening address,
 
“The 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake has claimed the lives of 42 people to date. Once again, I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to those who lost their lives as well as my sympathies to all those who have been affected by this disaster. Our front-line personnel will continue to exert every effort for finding and rescuing missing persons as quickly as possible.
 
Today, I visited some of the areas affected by the disaster, and witnessed with my own eyes the immense damage left by the earthquake, which had a maximum seismic intensity of 7. I also heard firsthand the earnest wishes and anxiety of those affected by the disaster, including those who have suffered great pain from losing family members in the landslides, those who have experienced much fear, and those who are leading difficult lives at evacuation centers due to the impact of power conservation efforts and water outage. We need to further accelerate the speed of the emergency responses and recovery.
 
The Government will continue to exert all-out efforts to ensure that all those who have been affected by the disaster can return to their normal lives and live with peace of mind at the earliest possible date.
 
With regard to electricity, power supply has been restored across all parts of Hokkaido, thanks to the efforts of the relevant parties. Supply is, however, still falling short of actual peak levels of demand prior to the earthquake. Therefore, I ask for the cooperation of all households, workplaces and industrial facilities to save energy by 20% compared to normal periods. The Government, in cooperation with the local governments, will provide thorough explanations and ensure that the information is fully disseminated.
 
With regard to waterworks, as a result of the restoration of power supply and repair works carried out on water pipes, water supply has been successfully restored for about 53,000 households to date. At the same time, approximately 8,000 households are still without running water. Having restored power supply, we are now doing our utmost to restore water supply as well, at the earliest possible date, so that those affected by the disaster can return to their normal lives.
 
To accelerate the recovery and reconstruction of the affected areas, it is important to prepare measures that enable the affected municipalities to exert every effort for emergency response and recovery measures, without worrying about their finances. To that end, I have issued instructions to promptly move up the provision of regular local allocation tax.
 
In addition, with the aim of further strengthening push-mode support for supplies that are indispensable to the lives and living environment of those affected by the disaster, tomorrow we will approve the use of 540 million yen of contingency funds. The Government will continue to provide the assistance needed to cover any necessary expenses that may arise during the recovery work.
 
I would like to ask each of you to swiftly grasp the needs on the ground, which are constantly changing, and immediately implement the necessary measures, while paying attention to the feelings of those affected by the disaster.”