The Japanese minister in charge of reconstruction after the Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster has stood down after controversial comments about the 2011 tragedy.

Masahiro Imamura turned in his letter of resignation a day after he said "it was rather good" that the 2011 tsunami-quake disaster hit the northern region and "not somewhere near the Tokyo area", because it would have caused an "enormous amount of (financial) damage" to the country.  The remark was caught on video by the national broadcaster NHK. 

Imamura later tried to clarify his remarks to say the damage to northern Japan was terrible, but:  "If it hits places near the Tokyo area, it would have been an unimaginable disaster.  That's what I meant to say."

Keep in mind that the disaster killed 15,894 people and 2,562 were never found.  Social media was flooded with angry comments from people who didn't like that Imamura seemed to take the financial damage more seriously than the human toll.

Earlier this month, Imamura lost his temper and yelled at a journalist during a question and answer period;  Japanese politicians rarely betray such negative emotions in public. Imamura was also criticized for arguing that "voluntary evacuees" from areas around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant should bear "self-responsibility for their own decisions".