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Japan to lift evacuation order for Fukushima town of Naraha
Topic Started: 4 Sep 2015, 10:34 PM (40 Views)
skibboy
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Japan to lift evacuation order for Fukushima town of Naraha

JIJI
SEP 4, 2015

FUKUSHIMA – The government is set to lift at midnight Friday its evacuation order for the Fukushima Prefecture town of Naraha, most of which is located within 20 kilometers of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

Naraha will be the first of the seven Fukushima municipalities where the entire populations were instructed to evacuate to have the order removed.

It will be the third such order to be lifted for a municipality in the former no-go zone set within 20 kilometers of the northeastern Japan power station, which suffered a reactor meltdown accident after a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Naraha had a registered population of 7,368 in 2,694 households as of Tuesday.

According to a survey by the government and others, some 46 percent of the residents hope to return home.

Only a portion of them are likely to go back immediately, however, including 780 people at some 350 households who are doing long-stays at their homes in the town to prepare for permanent returns.

The central and town governments will reopen a medical clinic in the town in October.

A new prefectural clinic will be built as early as February.

To handle sudden illnesses among elderly people wishing to return home, medical services will be reinforced through steps such as the distribution of emergency buzzers to those who need them.

In a bid to meet requests for shopping services, a supermarket in the town launched free delivery services in July.

A publicly built, privately run shopping center with a supermarket and do-it-yourself store will be established in fiscal 2016.

Dosimeters will be handed out to help people check radiation levels, while 24-hour monitoring will be conducted at a water filtration plant.

Tap water will be tested at households hoping to check for radioactive materials.

The government lifted its evacuation order for the Miyakoji district in the city of Tamura in April 2014 and the eastern part of the village of Kawauchi in October 2014.

In August 2012, Naraha was redesignated as an area being prepared for the removal of the evacuation order and where people are allowed to enter during the daytime.

With decontamination work largely completed, evacuees have been allowed since April 2015 to return home for long-term stays to prepare for permanent returns.

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skibboy
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Fukushima disaster: Japan reopens radiation-hit Naraha

9 hours ago

Japan is inviting residents to return to a town evacuated in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.

Naraha is the first town to allow people to return permanently, following several years of decontamination work.

But many say they are not ready to come back, and only a fraction have returned for brief stays since a trial period began in April.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant suffered a series of meltdowns following a massive earthquake and tsunami.

After the disaster, all of Naraha's 7,400 residents moved out.

The town, about 20km (12 miles) south of the nuclear plant, is seen as a test case for the return of evacuated residents.

Some 100,000 people in the area are still unable to return to their homes.

Authorities in Naraha are issuing people with devices to check radiation levels and have been rebuilding local services, including shops and clinics.

Naraha Mayor Yukiei Matsumoto said the lifting of the evacuation order was "just a start".

"The clock that was stopped has now begun to tick," he said.

Former residents held a vigil to mark the rebirth of the town.

Posted Image

But according to one survey, just 46% of residents say they hope to return.

One of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck off the coast of Japan in March 2011, triggering a huge tsunami.

Almost 16,000 people died and more than 2,500 are still listed as missing.

None of the deaths however have been linked to the nuclear disaster, although there were a number of deaths in the subsequent evacuation.

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skibboy
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Lifting of Naraha’s evacuation order can be model for other communities

September 06, 2015
The Yomiuri Shimbun

This is a significant milestone on the path toward the restoration of areas near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The government has lifted the evacuation order for the town of Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture, that was issued due to the March 2011 accident at the nuclear power plant.

Most of the town was designated as an area being prepared for the lifting of the order.

This is the first time an evacuation order has been lifted for an area that was completely emptied after the crisis, including its local government.

An evacuation order remains in place for nine cities, towns and villages around the nuclear plant.

We hope the Naraha case will become a model illustrating how these municipalities can handle the full return of their residents.

Decontamination of daily living areas within Naraha has been completed and basic infrastructure such as electricity and water networks have been restored.

Despite these efforts, just before the evacuation order was lifted only 780 residents had registered to stay overnight to prepare for permanent resettlement.

This is only slightly more than 10 percent of the town’s population.

Many people do not want to return to Naraha because the environment there does not yet allow them to live in comfort.

The only places to go shopping are convenience stores and a temporary supermarket.

Primary and middle schools in the town will not reopen for some time.

Quickly preparing the living environment is necessary to ensure the smooth return of residents.

Job creation also will be essential.

In a survey of town residents conducted in autumn 2014, elderly respondents expressed a strong desire to return, but more than 70 percent of those in their 40s or younger said they “will not return” or “could not decide at this time.”

A lack of job opportunities will exacerbate the increase in the proportion of elderly among Naraha’s residents and the shrinking of the community’s population, which had already been in evidence before the disaster.

Local govts must cooperate

The central government has provided subsidies to encourage businesses to operate in the town.

A joint team of central government and prefectural officials that provides advice to commercial business operators that have evacuated was launched, but authorities may be pressed to reconsider their countermeasures depending on how the return of residents progresses.

Many people in this region worked in jobs related to nuclear power plants.

Decommissioning of the reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant holds the key to creating jobs there.

We hope plans to create a concentration of research facilities and businesses in this field will help call young people back to the area.

The government plans to lift all evacuation orders by March 2017, except for areas where extremely high levels of radiation will make the return of residents difficult.

At the end of August, three municipalities, including Minami-Soma, began allowing residents to return home for long-term stays.

In contrast, areas designated as “difficult-to-return zones” are spread across the towns of Okuma and Futaba, where the nuclear plant site is located.

Naraha and other towns could be called on to host residents who want to return to an area close to their hometown but cannot predict when they will be able to return.

In July, a panel of experts set up by the Reconstruction Agency released a proposal that presented a future vision for municipalities near the nuclear plant.

The main pillars of this proposal were that each municipality should move ahead with the building of compact towns in which commercial complexes and administrative organs are key bases for revival of the area, and the provision of public services that transcends boundaries between these municipalities.

It is important to take the perspective that reviving this region should be done not through local governments making individual efforts, but by working together.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Sept. 6, 2015)

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Barista Yukiko Takano, 43, who runs a mobile cafe, serves a cup of latte Friday from her vehicle near the town hall in Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture. | AP

Under radioactive shadow of Fukushima, town of Naraha tries to come back to life
BY MARI YAMAGUCHI

AP
SEP 9, 2015

NARAHA, FUKUSHIMA PREF. – A few signs of life are returning to this rural town made desolate by the Fukushima nuclear disaster 4½ years ago: Carpenters bang on houses, an occasional delivery truck drives by and a noodle shop has opened to serve employees who have returned to the small town hall in Naraha, Fukushima Prefecture.

But weeds cover the now rusty train tracks, there are no sounds of children and wild boars still roam around at night.

On the outskirts of town, thousands of black industrial storage bags containing radiation-contaminated soil and debris stretch out across barren fields.

This past weekend, Naraha became the first of seven towns that had been entirely evacuated to reopen since the March 11, 2011, disaster, when tsunami slammed into the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, causing meltdowns and massive radiation leaks.

The town’s viability is far from certain, and its fate will be watched closely by authorities and neighboring towns to see if recovery is indeed possible on this once-abandoned land.

Just over a tenth of Naraha’s population of 7,400 say they plan to move back soon, and only a few hundred have actually returned, most of them senior citizens.

Schools won’t reopen for another two years, and many families with children are staying away due to concerns about radiation levels, which authorities say are below the annual allowable limit.

Residents are given personal dosimeters to check their own radiation levels if they want.

One thing that won’t change is the town’s dependence on the nuclear industry — only this time it will involve dismantling damaged reactors, not building and running them.

An economic revival plan centers on a giant ¥85 billion facility that is being built on the edge of town to research, develop and test specialized robots and other technology — part of the government’s “Innovation Coast” plan to turn the disaster-hit region into a hub for nuclear plant decommissioning technology.

The complex will include mock-ups of sections of the wrecked Fukushima reactors to train workers on robot operations.

Dismantling the No. 1 plant and removing its melted reactor cores will take about 40 years, the government estimates.

The facility is expected to draw hundreds of workers, and the town also seeks to host laborers to decontaminate buildings and outdoor areas in the region.

Naraha is also home to a second nuclear power plant — Fukushima No. 2 — that barely survived the tsunami but may be scrapped due to local opposition to its restart.

So it may also be dismantled.

Returning residents are determined to make a go of it, but they wonder if the town will survive economically — and mourn that it will never be the same cozy place it was five years ago.

“There are more decontamination workers than townspeople. It’s like we’ve been taken over,” said carpenter Koichi Takeda, who evacuated to the nearby city of Iwaki and was in town to help a friend clean her house.

He has a number of clients renovating their houses in Naraha, but most of them are undecided about whether they will actually return.

“It’s like keeping a vacation home here,” he said.

The southern edge of Naraha already hosts a soccer park called J-Village where temporary dormitories have been erected to house thousands of workers at the No. 1 plant.

Some residents, especially women, say they feel intimidated by a growing number of male workers from outside the town, citing the recent arrest of a former decontamination worker in another town of Fukushima in a murder case.

“I’m more concerned about security in town rather than the shortage of groceries and other inconveniences,” said Yukiko Takano, 43, who runs a mobile cafe out of her van near the town hall.

Tokuo Hayakawa, a 75-year-old Buddhist monk who returned with his wife, said he wasn’t very optimistic about the town’s future.

“The town’s reconstruction plan seems to be mainly for people from outside,” he said. “If I were in my 20s or 30s, I wouldn’t have returned. But at my old age I don’t have time and energy to start over elsewhere.”

Other elderly residents said they felt sad about not being able to invite grandchildren anytime soon given radiation concerns for kids.

“I was so sad to hear that my daughter said she can’t bring her child here,” said Taeko Suzuki, 63, getting teary. “She grew up here and this is her home. We built this place for her to come back when she wants to.”

Some 100,000 people from about 10 municipalities around the wrecked nuclear plant still cannot go home.

Many have moved to apartments or houses elsewhere, and some live in temporary housing built by the government.

The government hopes to lift all evacuation orders except for the most contaminated areas around the plant by March, 2017, offering up to ¥100,000 per household for moving back.

But evacuees criticize the plan as a public relations stunt to showcase Fukushima’s recovery ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Games.

Sections of two other towns reopened last year, but only half of their populations have since returned.

Naoko Kanai, a 50-year-old homemaker, is among those wrestling with whether to return to Naraha.

Kanai, who lost her job at a manufacturing company office in town that closed after the disaster, was back Saturday to check her house for the first time in about two months.

Previously, she had said she had no intention of moving back as her family had resettled in nearby Iwaki.

But as she opened the living room curtains to let in the air, her emotions wavered.

“This is not just a house, it’s filled with memories of my family and its history,” Kanai said. “I remember how we talked about the design of this house, the color of the curtain when we first moved in. This is where I packed lunch for my boys.”

Her older son has since married and doesn’t want to come back with his baby.

But her second son keeps his room almost the way it was in 2011 — his high school uniform hangs in the closet, a bookshelf filled with comic books, and a blanket folded on his bed.

“He wants to come back,” Kanai said. “I can’t abandon this place.”

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