Japan Marks Three Months Since Earthquake

(NewsCore) - Japan will mark three months Saturday since its devastating earthquake and tsunami, and the resulting nuclear crisis, with the prime minister visiting the disaster zone and thousands set for anti-nuclear protests.

Center-left Prime Minister Naoto Kan, under heavy opposition pressure to step down over his handling of the March 11 catastrophe, will make a one-day trip to an area in Iwate prefecture, one of the worst-hit regions, on June 11.

Kan will attend a government-sponsored forum in the port town of Kamaishi on ways to improve survivors' lives, said his spokesman, who apologized for the fact that many people were still enduring harsh conditions.

Frustration has run high in Japan as the Fukushima nuclear crisis shows no sign of ending, and nearly 100,000 evacuees remain holed up in more than 2,400 crowded shelters, many of them jobless and worried about their future.

Rebuilding the muddy wastelands of the northeastern Tohoku region -- an area now covered in 25 million tons (22.7 million tonnes) of rubble -- will take up to a decade and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, say experts.

The death toll from the quake -- Japan's biggest on record and the world's fourth largest tectonic event since 1900 -- has topped 23,000, including more than 8,000 people still officially listed as missing by national police.

Radiation is still leaking from the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant, surrounded by a 12-mile (20-kilometer) no-go zone, which emergency crews hope to bring into stable "cold shutdown" between October and January.

Environmental and anti-nuclear group Greenpeace called on Japan this week to evacuate children and pregnant women from Fukushima town, 37 miles (60 kilometers) from the stricken plant, because of what it said was high radiation.

Since the disaster, Japan has raised the legal exposure limit for people, including children, from one to 20 millisieverts per year -- matching the safety standard for nuclear industry workers in many countries.

In the wake of the disaster, Kan has said resource-poor Japan will review its energy policy, including its plans for more nuclear reactors, while making solar and other alternative energies new pillars of its energy mix.