An increasing number of evacuees are reluctant to return home in two municipalities that became ghost towns four-and-a-half years ago following the disaster at the nearby Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, a survey showed.
An increasing number of evacuees are reluctant to return home in two municipalities that became ghost towns four-and-a-half years ago following the disaster at the nearby Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, a survey showed.
When asked if they would return to their homes once the evacuation order on the towns was lifted, 50.8 percent of households in the town of Tomioka and 63.5 percent of households in Okuma said “no” in the survey.
Compared with a survey last year, that is a 1.4 percentage point increase for Tomioka and a 5.6 percentage point rise for Okuma.
Some 13.9 percent of households in Tomioka, up 2.0 percentage points, and 11.4 percent of Okuma households, down 1.9 percentage points, said “yes” to the question.
The percentage of households that were undecided was 29.4 percent in Tomioka, a 1.3 percentage point decrease, and 17.3 percent for Okuma, down 8.6 percentage points.
In August, all households from the two towns in Fukushima Prefecture were sent the surveys in a joint study conducted by the Reconstruction Agency, the Fukushima prefectural government and the two municipal governments.
The response rates were 51.4 percent for Tomioka and 50 percent for Okuma.
The central government is doing everything it can to encourage evacuees to return home, including lifting evacuation orders in some areas and establishing deadlines for receiving compensation for damages caused by the nuclear disaster.