Benchmark Nikkei News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

rate by 3/4 of a percentage rate and we expect ongoing increases will be appropriate. hello and welcome. thursday, september 22nd. 9 a.m. in london. 4 a.m. in washington and new york. he faces a new lawsuit and unprecedented number of investigations. it ruled the justice department can resume the criminal investigation and review of classified documents seized from his mar-a-lago home and resort during an fbi search. that coming hours after the new york attorney general announced a sweeping lawsuit against three of trump's children and trump himself. they're accused of staggering a...

Burial is banned in many cities and most opt for cremation. but officials that we spoke to there say they don't have enough crematoriums and they don't have any other choice. rob? >> akiko, what are we learning this morning in terms of the economic fallout from the disaster? >> reporter: well, more bad news out of the nikkei. benchmark nikkei fell 1.6% in early trading. it came on news that damages from the march 11th quake and tsunami could reach $300 billion. that figure really just a reminder of how large the rebuilding effort will be for japan. stock fell one day after posting strong gains...

Some towns reporting they cannot handle all the dead bodies. and evacuation centers are starting to report they are running out of food and water as well. >> and, akiko, did any of these fears prompt you to have to move throughout your reporting today? >> reporter: yeah. we were actually 40 miles south of the nuclear reactor plant. that's where we spoke to you from yesterday. but this morning after hearing reports of this latest explosion and assessing the situation, we decided to move further west, a way -- far away from the plant as we can. now we are headed back to narita, which is further ...

The nuclear threat. >> and as we've heard, the disaster is hitting the economy very, very hard there. akiko fujita is joining us now from an evacuation center in fukushima. akiko, we've heard about the economic toll this earthquake is having already. what is being done today in all of this? >> reporter: well, you're right, you know, shocks from the quake has extended to the markets. japan's benchmark nikkei fell 6.3% in the first session since the quake hit. that prompted the central bank to line up a record $183 billion in funds to stabilize the banking system. when you look at the numbers, t...

Reacting very much as expected. they are reacting badly. the benchmark nikkei dropped 6%, a 634-point plunge effectively wiping out all gains made since the start of the year. the bleak news raises obvious concerns about how this will affect trading on the u.s. front and questions about how soon japan can recover from this huge loss. cnbc's steve leaseman joins me now. steve, what we're seeing here was pretty much expected, but explain to all of us, japan's economy has been in flux for some time now. >> yeah, it has been. i'll tell you there's a lot of comparison to the kobe earthquake and wha...