The Olympic flame-lighting ceremony for the 2020 Summer Games will take place on March 11 — the ninth anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said Saturday.

"I think this is a wonderful idea," Bach said in an interview in Jakarta. "The IOC has already accepted this idea, because from the very beginning the IOC has made a commitment that wherever possible we want to contribute to the reconstruction of the area."

The Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee proposed the date, but Bach's statement was the first public announcement to confirm the IOC's support for holding the ceremony on the anniversary of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.