"If this were closer to the Tokyo area, it could have been of enormous proportions", he said. If it hit places near the Tokyo area, it would have been an unimaginable disaster.
"It's a good thing it was over there in the northeast", Masahiro Imamura said earlier in the day at a function in Tokyo for a faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, his second gaffe this month about the disaster.
Masahiro Imamura, minister in charge of reconstruction of the disaster-hit Tohoku region, intends to resign in the wake of controversial comments about the disaster, sources said Tuesday night.
"It was an extremely inappropriate comment and hurtful to people in the disaster zone, an act causing the people a reconstruction minister works for to lose trust in him, " Abe told reporters after Imamura resigned. Imamura was replaced by Masayoshi Yoshino, former deputy environment minister from Fukushima, where more than 18 000 people died following the quake and tsunami.
Abe appointed Imamura to his post in a Cabinet reshuffle in August previous year.
Almost 20,000 people were killed or went missing in the disaster.
Maduro donates $500000 to Trump fund despite economic woes
A teenager in the capital Caracas and a woman in San Cristobal, near the Colombian border, were shot dead. These protests reflect a disquiet among the populace that President Nicolas Maduro can no longer ignore.
The opposition could delay Diet deliberations by attacking Abe about the Imamura controversy.
Mr Imamura was criticised earlier this month over a suggestion during a news conference that those who left voluntarily following a meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant should fend for themselves.
Abe's approval rating, although still above 50 percent, has recently fallen, as scandals erode public confidence in a government now in its fifth year. Abe took power in December 2012 vowing to end years of on-and-off deflation and revitalise the world's third-largest economy.
Masayoshi Yoshino, a Lower House member representing a district in Fukushima Prefecture, replaced Imamura, who was elected from the Kyushu regional bloc in the proportional representation constituency of the Lower House.
But he has been forced to deny connections with a nationalistic school operator whose purchase of state land to build a primary school at a huge discount has drawn allegations of shady dealings.
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