Of those, just 27 square kilometers in six of the same municipalities are specified reconstruction zones. The Katsurao village official said about 337 square kilometers of land in seven Fukushima municipalities are deemed “difficult-to-return” zones. Japan to start releasing treated Fukushima water into sea in 2 yearsĪs of March 2020, only 2.4% of Fukushima prefecture remained off-limits to residents, with even parts of that area accessible for short visits, according to Japan’s Ministry of Environment. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Wednesday, April 7, 2021, told top fisheries association officials that his government believes the release to sea is the most realistic option and a final decision will be made "with days."(Kota Endo/Kyodo News via AP) Kota Endo/Kyodo News/AP The Japanese government has decided to get rid of the massive amounts of treated but still radioactive water stored in tanks at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant by releasing it into the Pacific ocean, a conclusion widely expected but delayed for years amid protests and safety concerns. Despite the decontamination efforts, a 2020 survey conducted by Kwansei Gakuin University found 65% of evacuees no longer wanted to return to Fukushima prefecture – 46% feared residual contamination and 45% had settled elsewhere.Īn aerial photo shows Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima Prefecture in January, 2021. Others may still have concerns about radiation. Many of those who left have rebuilt their lives elsewhere, the official said. The Japanese government concluded that radiation levels had fallen sufficiently for residents to return, though the figure hasn’t been released.įor now, just four households out of 30 said they intend to return to the Noyuki district, said the village official.īefore the disaster, Katsurao village had a population of around 1,500 people. International safety watchdogs recommend annual doses of radiation are kept below 20 millisieverts, the equivalent of two full-body CT scans. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said this month the opening would be the first time residents were allowed to live again in Katsurao’s Noyuki district, dubbed the “difficult-to-return” zone, an area with high levels of radiation up to 50 millisieverts. Some households however, are still waiting for their sections of the village to be decontaminated, according to the official.ĭecontamination work near an elementary school in Katsurao, near the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, on December 4, 2011. Most who have returned since 2016 are senior citizens. Evacuation orders for most of the village were lifted in June 2016, allowing registered residents to come and go, said a village official, who declined to be identified as is customary in Japan. On Sunday, Iwayama watched as a gate blocking access to his home in Katsurao’s Noyuki district was reopened at 8 a.m. In the years since, large-scale cleanup and decontamination operations have allowed some residents who once lived in the former exclusion zone to return. Once-bustling communities were turned into ghost towns. More than 300,000 people living near the nuclear plant were forced to temporarily evacuate and thousands more did so voluntarily. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the country’s coast, triggering a tsunami that caused a nuclear meltdown at the power plant and a major release of radioactive material. Kazunori Iwayama, a former resident of Katsurao village, which lies about 40 kilometers (24 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi plant said, “It feels like we finally reached the start line and can focus on bringing things back to normal.” More than 11 years after Japan’s worst nuclear disaster, the government lifted evacuation orders in a section of a village previously deemed off limits on Sunday, allowing residents to move back into their homes.
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