The Upper House on June 20 enacted a basic law for reconstruction of Tohoku-Pacific coastal areas devastated by the March 11 quake and tsunami. Besides the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and other opposition parties supported the bill, while the Japan Communist Party and Your Party opposed it.
The law stipulates the basic principles and a new government setup for reconstruction. But Prime Minister Naoto Kan and leaders of both the ruling and opposition forces should be ashamed of the fact that the law was not enacted until 102 days after the natural disasters.
Their work was very slow compared with the responses to the 1995 Kobe earthquake and the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. A similar law was enacted about a month after the Kobe quake and the Teito (Imperial Capital) Reconstruction Agency was established about a month after the Kanto quake.