Tuesday 12 April 2011

Nuclear evacuation zone widened

Fukushima nuclear plant in northeastern Japan is pictured in a 2008 file photo. Photo: REUTERS
Japan says it will widen its evacuation area to include areas outside the current 20 km exclusion zone.
Published: 2011/04/12 07:56:09 AM


JAPAN expanded the evacuation zone around its crippled nuclear plant over high levels of accumulated radiation, as a strong aftershock rattled the area a month after a quake and tsunami sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.


A magnitude 6.6 tremor shook buildings in Tokyo and a wide swathe of eastern Japan yesterday evening, knocking out power to 220000 households and causing a halt to water pumping to cool three damaged reactors at Fukushima. The epicentre of the latest quake was 88km east of the plant.




The government announced earlier that because of accumulated radiation contamination, it would encourage people to leave certain areas beyond its 20km exclusion zone around the plant.


Children, pregnant women, and hospitalised patients should stay out of some areas 30km from the nuclear complex, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said.






The move comes amid international concern over radiation spreading from the six damaged reactors at Fukushima, which engineers are still struggling to bring under control after they were wrecked by the 15m tsunami on March 11.


The president of Tepco, the Tokyo power company that owns the plant, Masataka Shimizu, visited the area yesterday for the first time since the disaster. He had all but vanished from public view apart from a brief apology and has spent some of the time since in hospital.


"I would like to deeply apologise again for causing physical and psychological hardships to people of Fukushima prefecture and near the nuclear plant," he said. Nearly 28000 people have died or are missing since the quake and tsunami . Fukushima governor Yuhei Sato did not refuse to meet him, but the Tepco boss left a business card at the government office.


"My chest has been ripped open by the suffering and pain this disaster has caused the people of our prefecture," Mr Sato said at a commemoration earlier yesterday. "I have no words to express my sorrow."


JPMorgan has said in a research report Tepco could face ¥2-trillion ($23,6bn) in special losses in the year to March 2012 to compensate communities near its crippled plant. Tepco has been forced to pump low- level radioactive water, left by the tsunami, back into the sea. China and South Korea have both criticised Japan for the action.




Concern at Japan’s inability to contain its nuclear crisis is mounting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s ruling party suffering embarrassing losses in local elections on Sunday.


"The great disaster was a double tragedy …. The other misfortune was that it prolonged Mr Kan’s time in office," Sankei newspaper said in an editorial yesterday. Reuters


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