TOKYO (Kyodo) — Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged Saturday to enable people who were exposed to the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki outside of the state-designated area to receive medical aid equivalent to that offered to state-recognized atomic bomb survivors.
The announcement came after a Japanese district court earlier this month ordered the Nagasaki prefectural and city governments to certify 15 of 44 plaintiffs as atomic bomb survivors, known as hibakusha, given that they were exposed to radioactive “black rain.”
After meeting with the Nagasaki governor and mayor at his official residence, Kishida said the medical expense relief plan will apply to all those who were within 12 kilometers of the bomb’s hypocenter in 1945, adding the program is expected to be launched by the end of the year.
So far, the central government has provided those who experienced the atomic bombing outside the designated area but within a 12-kilometer radius of the hypocenter with limited support compared with state-recognized survivors.
The ruling was issued by the Nagasaki District Court on Sept. 9. Kishida has instructed health minister Keizo Takemi and other relevant Cabinet members to consider concrete measures to assist those receiving limited support.
Japan gov’t to equalize medical support for Nagasaki A-bomb survivors
