Japan govt announces evacuation outside 20-km zone around NPP

TOKYO, April 22 (Itar-Tass) - The Japanese government of Japan decided
to expand the evacuation zone around the emergency Fukushima-1 nuclear
power plant and include in it a number of settlements north-west of the
station, where an increased radiation background has been registered,
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a press conference on Friday.
In accordance with the law on nuclear safety the villages of Katsurao,
Namie, Iitate, as well as some areas of the Minamisoma and Kawamata towns
are included in the evacuation zone, Edano said. He noted that the
residents of these areas have been advised to leave their homes within a
month.
On Thursday, the Japanese government totally prohibited the entry in
the 20-kilometre zone around the Fukushima-1 NPP. The data of measurements
of background radiation show that, taking into account the topography and
wind direction, some areas outside the zone to the north and northwest of
the station have been contaminated with radioactive substances over the
past month. Thus, high content of the isotopes of iodine and cesium was
found in the Iitate village located 40 kilometres from the troubled NPP.
According to the Kyodo news agency, the government on Friday added
some towns outside a 20-kilometer radius of the crisis-hit Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant to the list of areas covered by its evacuation
directive, due to concerns over high cumulative levels of radiation. All
residents in Katsurao, Namie and Iitate and some in Kawamata and
Minamisoma in Fukushima Prefecture must leave by around late May, Yukio
Edano said. The announcement came a day after the government declared the
20-km zone around the tsunami-stricken plant a no-go area.
The top government spokesman said the latest expansion was made based
on internationally recommended standards and radiation monitoring data
collected since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered the
country's worst nuclear crisis, Kyodo reported. He said there is a
possibility of residents of the five municipalities receiving a dose of 20
millisieverts during the course of a year, even if they live outside the
no-go zone. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has recommended
that the highest planned residual radiation over one year be in the range
of 20 to 100 millisieverts in an emergency.
The Fukushima-1 Nuclear Power Plant, also known as Fukushima Daiichi,
is a disabled nuclear power plant located on a 3.5-square-kilometre
(860-acre) site in the towns of Okuma and Futaba in the Futaba District of
Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. First commissioned in 1971, the plant
consists of six boiling water reactors (BWR). These light water reactors
drove electrical generators with a combined power of 4.7 GWe, making
Fukushima-1 one of the 15 largest nuclear power stations in the world.
Fukushima-1 was the first nuclear plant to be constructed and run entirely
by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The plant suffered major
damage from the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan on 11
March 2011 and is not expected to reopen. The earthquake and tsunami
disabled the reactor cooling systems, leading to nuclear radiation leaks
and triggering a 30 km evacuation zone surrounding the plant. The
Fukushima-2 Nuclear Power Plant, or Fukushima Daini, is located to the
south and also run by TEPCO.