KAZO, Saitama Prefecture--With the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant expected to linger for another six to nine months, officials at nearby Futaba are worried about their town's future.
KAZO, Saitama Prefecture--With the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant expected to linger for another six to nine months, officials at nearby Futaba are worried about their town's future.
About a month ago, the town hall and assembly moved 200 kilometers away to Saitama Prefecture after the central government advised people within a 20-kilometer radius of the stricken nuclear power plant to evacuate.
Mayor Katsutaka Idogawa had hoped the move to Saitama would bring Futaba residents together in one place, but only about 1,400 people, 20 percent of Futaba's population, followed.
The rest are taking refuge in Niigata and other prefectures and about a dozen locations within Fukushima Prefecture.
The evacuees in Saitama are staying in Kisai Senior High School, a school in Kazo that has been shut down. About 170 elementary and junior high school students from Futaba have transferred to nearby schools, and some evacuees have landed jobs in the surrounding areas.
Eight of the 11 members of the town assembly have moved to Saitama Prefecture, but the urgent issue for them now is when they should return to Fukushima Prefecture.
Futaba was ravaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which set off the leaking radiation crisis at the nuclear plant. The Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, said on April 17 that it will take six to nine months to bring the hobbled plant under control.
With their stay at shelters outside the evacuation zone now longer than initially expected, some Futaba officials are calling for a return to Fukushima Prefecture at the earliest opportunity.
On April 19, Mayor Idogawa, 69, met with assembly members to discuss the future of their town.
According to assembly chairman Yasuhiro Kiyokawa, Idogawa did not mention a specific timeline as to when the town hall should return. Idogawa was quoted as saying that he will think about it after taking into consideration the progress in construction of temporary housing units outside the evacuation zone and employment opportunities for evacuees.
Assemblyman Hiroki Kanno, 40, said they should move as soon as possible.
Kanno said evacuees in 12 evacuation shelters in Fukushima Prefecture urged the return of the town hall when he visited them to ask their opinions a week earlier. He said many Futaba residents at the shelters felt as if they had been "abandoned" by their town.
The town is applying for temporary housing units for its residents staying in Fukushima Prefecture, but residents there remain wary as the town hall is now hundreds of kilometers away.
Some evacuees in Kazo are also inclined toward a return.
"Staying in Saitama Prefecture is meant to be a temporary step," a 40-year-old man said. "We had better go back to Fukushima."
But staying in a place within easy access to metropolitan areas has an advantage in terms of job opportunities.
"There must be more jobs available in the Tokyo metropolitan area than in Fukushima Prefecture, which was devastated by the disaster and the nuclear accident," said a town official.
Idogawa envisions his constituents earning incomes from jobs in metropolitan areas but returning to Futaba on holiday occasions as one possibility. But he is still unsure when he can get his entire town back together.
"It's a tough question," the Futaba mayor said. "I'm going to think about it after listening to many townspeople's opinions."
(This article was written by Yoshitaka Unezawa, Toru Furusho and Seiji Kanda.)