About 80% of damaged houses won't qualify for public funds.

NIIGATA-Only about 20 percent of homes damaged in the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake qualify for public disaster funds, according to the Niigata prefectural government, an assessment that has angered quake victims.

As of Tuesday, only about 1,300 houses were assessed as ``totally destroyed,'' while about 2,800 were ``half destroyed.'' Those households are eligible for aid.

The rest, about 20,300, were assessed as only minimally or partially damaged and will get nothing.

The homes in Niigata Prefecture hit by the Oct. 23 temblors are sturdily constructed to withstand the heavy snow that engulfs the region every winter. That saved many houses from being razed in the quakes but not enough for people to resettle in them without extensive repairs.

One 66-year-old woman from Nagaoka-one of the areas hardest hit by the quakes-doesn't agree that her house is minimally damaged.

She says pillars in her house are bent as if they had been twisted and she can no longer live in there. She has been staying with her relatives since the temblors hit.

But according to government standards, she doesn't qualify for funding, which comes from both national and local sources.

For those whose houses were totally destroyed, there is a 1998 national law to help disaster victims rebuild their lives that pays up to 3 million yen per household.

For those whose houses were ``half destroyed,'' up to 600,000 yen will be paid per household for repairs under a 1953 revision to a national law on disaster relief. Under the 1998 law, those households are also eligible, when damages are extensive, for up to 1 million yen for the purchase of furniture and appliances.

Those whose houses were ``half destroyed'' also qualify for up to 500,000 yen from the Niigata prefectural government, which decided to expand aid under the law for supporting the reconstruction of the lives of disaster victims.

The prefectural government has other aid programs of its own.

But houses that are assessed as only minimally or partially damaged do not qualify for any of this national or prefectural aid.

Officials in charge of crisis management at the prefectural government said that since this category involves small damages such as broken windows, those households are not eligible for public funds, which are in short supply anyway.

The number of households requesting public aid is likely to increase in the coming weeks because the assessment of house damages has not been completed in all areas of Nagaoka and Tokamachi in the prefecture.(IHT/Asahi: November 18,2004)