FUKUSHIMA--Evacuees can return home in the hardest-hit areas around the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant by 2021, after decontamination work sufficiently reduces radiation levels there, according to government estimates released on June 23.
FUKUSHIMA--Evacuees can return home in the hardest-hit areas around the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant by 2021, after decontamination work sufficiently reduces radiation levels there, according to government estimates released on June 23.
The Cabinet Office’s working team in charge of assisting the lives of nuclear disaster victims estimated that cleanup efforts and “natural decontamination effects” will cut annual radiation doses by 54 to 76 percent in the “difficult-to-return” zones around the plant.
The numbers were presented to local government leaders at a meeting in the prefectural capital of Fukushima. The meeting was held by the industry ministry’s panel that is promoting reconstruction of coastal areas in Fukushima Prefecture.
The government intends to use the latest estimates to reassure evacuees so that it can lift evacuation orders as early as possible.
But Jin Kowata, director of the Nogami No. 1 administrative district of Okuma town, raised doubts about the Cabinet Office’s estimates.
“The results are too optimistic,” he said. “I want (the central government) to release more accurate estimates for the nearer future instead of the ones for 10 years after the disaster.”
All residents of Okuma were forced to evacuate after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami caused the triple meltdown at the plant in March 2011.
The Cabinet Office’s team took into account the results of the Environment Ministry’s model decontamination program in the zones last fiscal year. It also factored in natural decontamination effects based on the half-lives of radioactive substances and the impact of rain, wind and other natural elements.
The estimates are also based on the premise that personal exposure to radiation remains around 70 percent of the air dose rates.
The central government currently plans to allow evacuees to return to their homes when annual radiation doses in each region decline to 20 millisieverts or less.
According to the team’s estimate for areas where 100 millisieverts per year were detected in November, adults who live in wooden houses and stay outside for 6.5 hours a day will be exposed to 6 to 12 millisieverts in 2021 if decontamination work is conducted.
Even without cleanup work, the radiation dose readings for those people are estimated to drop to 24 millisieverts by 2021.
The team has not estimated the radioactive doses for children.
However, it is unclear if the decontamination efforts will continue producing the significant results that they are currently achieving, and geographic features could also negatively affect the results of the cleanup programs.
(This article was written by Senior Staff Writer Noriyoshi Otsuki and Yuri Oiwa.)