Tokyo, May 01: Some 76 percent of Japanese are unsatisfied with Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s handling of the aftermath of the March 11 quake and tsunami, and the country’s nuclear crisis.
According to a telephone survey conducted by Kyodo News Agency on Friday and Saturday, dissatisfaction with Kan’s leadership has grown among the Japanese since March when 63.7 of people were unsatisfied with the government.
A total of 70.6 percent said they did not value the government’s handling of the nuclear crisis, and 52.3 percent said they did not value the way the central government had dealt with disaster-hit areas.
The survey also showed 23.6 percent of the respondents think Kan should resign immediately, which is 13.8 percent more than the previous survey.
On the central government’s response to the quake and tsunami, 12.4 percent said they did not agree with the state’s relief measures for people affected by the disasters and support for disaster-hit areas at all, and 39.9 percent said they did not agree with them much.
The survey showed 41.1 percent said that they approve of such efforts to some extent.
On March 11, an 8.9-magnitude earthquake, off the northeast coast of Japan’s main island, unleashed a 23-foot (7-meter) tsunami and was followed by more than 50 aftershocks for hours.
The twin disasters have claimed the lives of more than 28.000 people.
The quake is now considered Japan’s deadliest natural disaster since the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which claimed the lives of more than 142,000 people.
——-Agencies