Australia PM vows to back disaster-hit Japan
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday vowed to help Japan recover from last month's earthquake and tsunami by securing natural resources and energy supplies for the Asian country.
Gillard arrived in Tokyo late Wednesday on a four-day visit to hold talks with her Japanese counterpart Naoto Kan and visit northeastern Japan, hit by the March 11 disaster that has left more than 27,000 people dead or missing.
"Australia will do anything it can to assist during this very difficult period," Gillard said at a news conference after her talks with Kan.
Gillard said she told Kan Australia "will continue to be a reliable supply of energy into the future.
"Particularly now the people in Japan need new energy sources because of the nuclear emergency."
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Naoto Kan banned people from going within 20 kilometres of the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, which has been leaking radiation for nearly six weeks.
The ban, which gives legal weight to an existing exclusion zone, comes after police found more than 60 families living in the area and residents returning to their abandoned homes to collect belongings.
The ban to be enforced from midnight, on a visit to Fukushima prefecture, where thousands now live in evacuation shelters, almost six weeks after the March 11 quake.
Resource-poor Japan is reliant on energy imports and nuclear power to produce electricity but power generation has been hit by the disaster which damaged several atomic plants. Australia is also a key supplier of uranium.
Meanwhile, a strong earthquake of magnitude 6.0 hit eastern Japan late yesterday, rattling buildings in Tokyo but appearing to cause no damage and there was no tsunami warning.
The tremor struck at a depth of 70 kilometres, off Chiba prefecture, at 10:37 pm, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
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