Japan's government has decided to provide additional funding to help the Noto region in central Japan recover from a powerful earthquake and torrential rains last year.



Cabinet ministers decided on Friday to allocate nearly 107 billion yen, or about 710 million dollars, from the reserve funds in the current fiscal year's budget.



The Noto Peninsula region was hit by an earthquake on New Year's day last year. Torrential rains in September caused many residents to suffer again.



About half of the fresh funding will be spent on dismantling damaged buildings, rebuilding roads, tap water and sewage facilities, river banks and farmland.



The rest, or about 330 million dollars, will be handed out to local authorities as grants, allowing them to flexibly decide how to spend the money. The Ishikawa prefectural government had requested this type of funding.



This is the eighth time the government has tapped into its budget reserves to support the Noto Peninsula region, bringing total spending to nearly 5.5 billion dollars.



In addition, the supplementary budget for this fiscal year earmarks about 1.7 billion dollars in assistance for the region.