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Japan PM may visit to quake-hit areas next week

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-03-18 19:15

TOKYO -- Japan prime Minister Naoto Kan, under increasing pressure for his handling of the aftermath of the country's devastating earthquake and nuclear crisis, may visit worst-hit areas of the northeast next week, a senior official said on Friday.

"We are considering it," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.

"The significance of (Kan) directly seeing conditions there and listening (to the evacuees) is growing."

Kan flew over the stricken nuclear plant and quake-hit areas last Saturday, the day after the magnitude 9.0 quake, and said afterwards that the country faced its biggest challenge since the end of the Second World War.

Just before the quake hit on Friday, he was sitting slumped in his seat in parliament listening to opposition demands for his resignation over yet another Japanese political funding scandal.

Edano said the government has yet to finalise Kan's trip, ?because it does not want to bother local authorities at a time when they are very busy addressing the needs of locals.