Fukushima Nuclear Ghost Towns Won’t See Residents for At Least 20 Years

It looks like many of the roughly 75,000 people whose communities are still too contaminated by radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to return home won’t be getting back anytime soon. Environment Minister Goshi Hosono said Sunday that some of those displaced won’t be able to go back for 20 years or more.

The problem began in March last year, when three of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi partially melted, spewing radioactive cesium over the region. Under Japan’s current evacuation system, people can go back to their homes if radiation levels are under 20 millisieverts a year, a level that in itself is about 20 times higher than what Japan is ultimately aiming for as safe. Mr. Hosono, who participated in a meeting with communities that originated in the Futaba district of Fukushima prefecture where the crippled plant lies, explained that parts of the towns of Okuma, Futaba and Namie will likely still be over the limit even after 20 years.



Mr. Hosono said the government is investigating measures to support those who can’t go back. He also requested that the communities let the government store spent nuclear fuel in their towns temporarily — since they’ll be empty of people anyway.

Tamotsu Baba, the mayor of Namie, criticized the current system on Saturday, saying that he found out about the latest evacuation policies on television last March and was not contacted by the government. Namie’s government is currently operating out of the nearby town of Nihonmatsu.

As the Fukushima Daiichi accident unfolded last year, the Japanese government imposed three evacuation zones with different rules on how strictly they were enforced, depending on the level of contamination.

The government has reduced the coverage of its evacuation zones twice, once in September, 2011 and once at the end of March. After the rules were relaxed in September, only 2,000 of 28,000 eligible evacuees returned, and it is unclear how many of the 13,000 eligible to return after the March order will go home.

To deal with the thousands displaced, the government announced in April it will let victims whose communities were contaminated live in temporary housing for one more year. So far, 16,464 temporary housing facilities have been completed in Fukushima prefecture.

[wsj.com]