US focused on human costs of Japan disaster: Geithner

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the United States' focus on Japan is to help it limit the human costs of last week's earthquake and tsunami.

Geithner, answering questions before a US House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee, said it was too early to tell what effect Japan's catastrophe would have on US recovery.

"It a hard jugement to make at this stage. Our focus now is, as it should be, on trying to do as much ase we can to help them mitigate the humanitarian costs of the catastrophe there, and we'll offer them every assistance we can and help make sure that the restructuring effort itself is handled as carefully as possible."